TITLE:
Measuring Exterior Housing Quality in Four Older-Urban Neighbourhoods in Windsor, Ontario
AUTHORS:
Alan G. Phipps
KEYWORDS:
Home Maintenance and Improvement, Exterior Housing Quality, Home Attributes, Survey of Home Exterior, Older-Urban Neighbourhoods, Canada
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Building Construction and Planning Research,
Vol.4 No.1,
March
8,
2016
ABSTRACT: Four theoretically-deduced hypotheses about geographical and temporal variations in exterior
housing quality within a neighbourhood are summarized as a renovation- or deterioration-of-self
effect, a contagion-down-the-street effect, a distance-from-riverbank effect, and a distance-from core
effect. These hypotheses are tested with data for the exterior conditions of hundreds of single-
detached (-like) houses that have been individually surveyed twice with the same instrument
in four older-urban neighbourhoods in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Each surveyed house’s rated
conditions of 12 exterior attributes are in particular utilized to calculate its overall exterior quality
as a percentage above or below normal. Findings are that houses’ exteriors had average “normal”
weathered conditions for Canada. Even so, overall exterior housing qualities in three
neighbourhoods exemplified a hypothesized deterioration-of-self effect and proximity-to-core effect,
as they had especially declined from their original survey to their resurvey for houses located
near to a core such as downtown or a casino. In addition, the hypothesized distance-from-riverbank
effect was observed in one neighbourhood where overall exterior housing quality linearly deteriorated
with farther distance from a riverbank. Finally, overall exterior housing qualities had no
observable contagion-down-the-street effect, and so, residents were not reacting positively or
negatively to their neighbours’ maintenance and improvement of their homes’ exteriors. The
practical implications of the study’s findings are discussed in the conclusion.