What makes people stay in or leave shrinking cities? An empirical study from Portugal

Maria Helena Guimaraes, Luis Nunes, Ana Paula Barreira and Thomas Panagopoulos ()

Nova SBE Working Paper Series from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics

Abstract: The relative attractiveness of cities as places to live determines population movements in or out of them. Understanding the appealing features of a city is fundamental to local governments, particularly for cities facing population decline. Pull and push attributes of cities can include economic aspects, the availability of amenities and psychological constructs, initiating a discussion around which factors are more relevant in explaining migration. However, a pull push approach has been underexplored in studies of shrinking cities. In the present study, we contribute to the discussion by identifying pull and push factors in Portuguese shrinking cities. Data were collected using a face-to-face questionnaire survey of 701 residents in four shrinking cities: Oporto, Barreiro, Peso da R gua and Moura. Factor analysis and automatic linear modelling were used to analyse the data. Our results support previous findings that the economic activity of a city is the most relevant feature for retaining residents. However, other characteristics specific to each city, especially those related to heritage and natural beauty, are also shown to influence a city s attractiveness as a place to live. The cause of population shrinkage is also found to influence residents assessments of the pull and push attributes of each city. Furthermore, the results show the relevance of social ties and of place attachment to inhabitants intention to continue living in their city of residence.

Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
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https://run.unl.pt/bitstream/10362/14591/1/WP592.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: What makes people stay in or leave shrinking cities? An empirical study from Portugal (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unl:unlfep:wp592

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