Drivers of Car Ownership in a Car-Oriented City: A Mixed-Method Study
This paper presents a mixed-method analysis of car ownership in Reykjavik, Iceland, a location with a high motorization level and deeply rooted car culture. We utilize qualitative interviews to understand vehicle possession reasons and elaborate the study with statistical analysis using a softGIS su...
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ftrepec:oai:RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:619-:d:478183 2024-04-14T08:13:53+00:00 Drivers of Car Ownership in a Car-Oriented City: A Mixed-Method Study Jukka Heinonen Michał Czepkiewicz Áróra Árnadóttir Juudit Ottelin https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/619/pdf https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/619/ unknown https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/619/pdf https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/619/ article ftrepec 2024-03-19T10:38:23Z This paper presents a mixed-method analysis of car ownership in Reykjavik, Iceland, a location with a high motorization level and deeply rooted car culture. We utilize qualitative interviews to understand vehicle possession reasons and elaborate the study with statistical analysis using a softGIS survey dataset with characteristics of the respondents and their residential location. We focus on adults aged 25 to 40, who are suggested to be less car-oriented than older generations. We also describe the historic development of Reykjavik’s car culture to give a perspective for the findings. We show that even among the studied age group, car ownership is still seen as a social norm, with few even seeing it possible to live without a car, and the public transport system is seen as giving a poverty stigma. However, we still find an increasing share of car-free households towards the city center. Still, the built environment impact is limited to the city center, which has a higher proportion of small adult-only households residing in shared apartments than other areas. Moreover, there seems to be a three-fold connection between having a child, acquiring a car (if not already possessed), and choosing a suburban residential location. Some indications of residential self-selection related to car ownership were found, but pro-car attitudes and residential location independently influenced car ownership. This study helps to understand the reasons for high car dominance and supports designing policies to reduce car-dependency, not just in Reykjavik but also elsewhere. car ownership; car-oriented mobility culture; transit-oriented development (TOD); built environment; residential self-selection; mixed-method study Article in Journal/Newspaper Iceland RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) |
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This paper presents a mixed-method analysis of car ownership in Reykjavik, Iceland, a location with a high motorization level and deeply rooted car culture. We utilize qualitative interviews to understand vehicle possession reasons and elaborate the study with statistical analysis using a softGIS survey dataset with characteristics of the respondents and their residential location. We focus on adults aged 25 to 40, who are suggested to be less car-oriented than older generations. We also describe the historic development of Reykjavik’s car culture to give a perspective for the findings. We show that even among the studied age group, car ownership is still seen as a social norm, with few even seeing it possible to live without a car, and the public transport system is seen as giving a poverty stigma. However, we still find an increasing share of car-free households towards the city center. Still, the built environment impact is limited to the city center, which has a higher proportion of small adult-only households residing in shared apartments than other areas. Moreover, there seems to be a three-fold connection between having a child, acquiring a car (if not already possessed), and choosing a suburban residential location. Some indications of residential self-selection related to car ownership were found, but pro-car attitudes and residential location independently influenced car ownership. This study helps to understand the reasons for high car dominance and supports designing policies to reduce car-dependency, not just in Reykjavik but also elsewhere. car ownership; car-oriented mobility culture; transit-oriented development (TOD); built environment; residential self-selection; mixed-method study |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Jukka Heinonen Michał Czepkiewicz Áróra Árnadóttir Juudit Ottelin |
spellingShingle |
Jukka Heinonen Michał Czepkiewicz Áróra Árnadóttir Juudit Ottelin Drivers of Car Ownership in a Car-Oriented City: A Mixed-Method Study |
author_facet |
Jukka Heinonen Michał Czepkiewicz Áróra Árnadóttir Juudit Ottelin |
author_sort |
Jukka Heinonen |
title |
Drivers of Car Ownership in a Car-Oriented City: A Mixed-Method Study |
title_short |
Drivers of Car Ownership in a Car-Oriented City: A Mixed-Method Study |
title_full |
Drivers of Car Ownership in a Car-Oriented City: A Mixed-Method Study |
title_fullStr |
Drivers of Car Ownership in a Car-Oriented City: A Mixed-Method Study |
title_full_unstemmed |
Drivers of Car Ownership in a Car-Oriented City: A Mixed-Method Study |
title_sort |
drivers of car ownership in a car-oriented city: a mixed-method study |
url |
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/619/pdf https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/619/ |
genre |
Iceland |
genre_facet |
Iceland |
op_relation |
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/619/pdf https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/619/ |
_version_ |
1796311972323524608 |