PITTSBURGH, PA--Homeowners in central cities, inner suburbs and outer suburbs who choose to move do so for a variety of reasons, but the direction most choose is clear: outward.

Geographer Hazel Morrow-Jones, an urban planning professor at Ohio State University, has done a study that integrates the household characteristics and motivations of the movers with the specific characteristics and locations of the units bought and sold in the Columbus region. She will report some of her findings on intra-urban mobility Wednesday at the 96th annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Pittsburgh, PA.

Morrow-Jones analyzed all deed transfer records for Franklin County (the Columbus metropolitan area) for 1995, identifying 2,420 homeowners who sold one home and bought another that year. She combined this data with survey responses from about 35 percent of that group.

Morrow-Jones found an ominous trend among homeowners leaving the central city. The central Columbus school district lost over 40 percent of those selling their homes, while inner suburbs (municipalities completely surrounded by others with no room for growth) lost only 5 percent of their owners. Only the outer suburbs posted a gain, more than 35 percent.

In overall location choices, buyers showed a clear preference for outer suburbs. The study found that, while inner suburban movers were most likely to stay in the inner suburbs (50 percent), central city movers were most likely to move to the outer suburbs (50 percent), and outer suburban movers were overwhelmingly more likely to stay in those communities (86 percent).

From survey responses, Morrow-Jones measured the importance of two kinds of variables that affected the buying decisions. The first group included what Morrow-Jones termed "life course variables," such as income, marital status, desires for larger or smaller homes, or the presence of children in the household. Here the research supported common expectations about moves. About 75 percent of repeat homebuyers were moving to larger, more expensive homes. Central city buyers were less likely to be married or to have children. About one-quarter of all movers, usually empty nesters, moved down in housing.

A second group of questions asked respondents to rate the importance of neighborhood factors in their buying and selling decision. When asked to rate the importance of safety, race, economics, academics or investment quality in selling decisions, those surveyed ranked safety and investment factors as extremely important in their decision to sell. In ranking reasons for buying the new home, safety and investment became even more important.

The importance of school quality varied among the three locations. Those buying in the central city rated school quality as less of an issue than did those in the outer suburbs, while inner suburbs gave the school factor an importance rating second only to safety.

"In spite of our attempts to disaggregate racially-oriented variables," Morrow-Jones points out "people seldom claimed race as an important issue in their decisions. This research agrees with other findings on life-cycle moves, push-and-pull factors in mobility and the relative attractiveness of city versus suburban locations for homebuyers. But it also has implications for the future of metropolitan structure," said Morrow-Jones. She suggests that cities seeking to retain residents in viable central neighborhoods may need to encourage development of more desirable housing.

"For the moment, Columbus' inner suburbs seems to be holding their own, but there is evidence that they are teetering on the edge of having serious problems. The City of Columbus School District continues to see major outward movement and once people have moved to the outer suburbs, there seems to be very little chance that they will move back inward."

Morrow-Jones' research was funded by The Ohio State University Urban Affairs Committee, the Ohio Real Estate Commission and the Ohio Center Real Estate Education and Research.

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