Abstract:
Households must often trade-off amenity, accessibility, and affordability in their residential
and travel decisions. Little research attention has been given to how these trade-offs are
made amongst lower income households in South Africa, the nature of relationships
between neighbourhood relocation, housing affordability, and travel aspirations. The aim of
this paper is to investigate relationships between travel patterns, household expenditure,
and residential relocation, in the Roodepoort Regional Node, a social housing
development scheme in Johannesburg with walkable mixed land-uses and close proximity
to public transport services. The research method involved qualitative retrospective
mobility biography interviews of 31 residents. The findings indicate that the relocation to
Roodepoort was motivated by varying combinations of: housing affordability; change in
family structure; proximity to facilities; activity spaces; employment opportunities; and
access to transport. The relocation yielded a change in travel behaviour for the majority of
the study participants. It was found that relocation can result in benefits such as proximity
to transport and saving money and travel time. The findings demonstrated, however, that
being located in a public transport-friendly node does not necessarily result in the
participants using public transport.
