18
HOANG HUU PHE AND PATRICK WAKE LY
household has to pay for a more expensive house to be able to stay in the desirable zone. If high-incom e residents from other af¯ uent areas move to B for the purpose of eventually proceeding to R, the process is called gentri® cation. By contrast, for the household in B, the options are more limited. It can move left, keeping the same quality level while hoping to enter the desirable zone (i.e. by moving along BA towards AÐ a rare occurrence, often partly related to abandonment ). It can move right, into areas nearer to the status pole, where there may be higher chances for the gains outlined above, but locationally well into the undesirable zone. When this balancing can no longer be justi® edÐ that is, for instance, when the increase in social and environmental degradation outweighs the gainsÐ abandonment happens. Alternatively, the household can stay put and hope that it will be able eventually to improve the physical quality of its dwelling (moving along B± R). Improving the physical quality of poor housing is normally called upgrading and although the dwelling quality (DQ) may increase considerably, in practice it is rarely enough to get it above the threshold line, in this way differing from the process of gentri® cation, not only in terms of motivation but also in terms of physical quality.
As the status level increases, the range of possibilities to stay in the acceptable zone gradually decreases, until it reaches point N (the lower limit for highest-value housing), where acceptable dwelling quality falls within very narrow margins (MN). This means that at the top of the market, houses differ little from each other in terms of dwelling quality. The trade-off with predetermined level of status. Some households make decisions about their residential location with a predetermined level of status in mind. In developed countries, for instance, many families looking for a good local school for their children belong to this category. In developing countries, better off rural±urban migrants often do so, for the purpose of being seen as respectable in the eyes of their peers. For these people, there are two seemingly straightforward and unambiguous choices: Scenario 1. A household has to spend more money for the housing unit, to be in the desirable zone (point A in Figure 8). Scenario 2: A household can spend less money and stay in the undesirable zone (point B in Figure 8). Thus, the trade-off is between housing ex-
Figure 8. Trade-off with predetermined level of housing status (HS).