Leaving randstad Holland: An analysis of housing preferences with decision plan nets

This article considers the willingness of Randstad residents to move out of this urban region. The research question is “Which households plan to leave the Randstad and under what conditions?”The focus is on growth centers, which were developed to resolve soccial and environmental problems in the congested cities and to prevent urban sprawl.After giving some theoretical background on the phenomenon of mobility, the article considers migration from the Randstad to other parts of the country. That discussion is based on the literature and on empirical data. The design of our own investigation is presented, with an emphasis on the method we used, namely Decision Plan Nets. This method allows the investigator to query people with a propensity to move more explicitly on their housing preferences. The main conclusions of our research are that residents of growth centers generally express very little desire to leave the Randstad, even upon further probing. If they want to leave, they would only do so under certain conditions, primarily related to employment opportunities outside the Randstad.