3.6 The Choice of the Present House

In order to interpret the later sections about the preferences for future house it was of interest to study the process by which the present house was obtained.

The most interesting fact which emerges is that only half of the housewives in the sample considered that they had any choice at all in their present dwelling. Of the rest the choice was made by the husband in 8% of cases, by the wife in 19% of cases and by both in consultation in 17% cases. In 6% of cases the house was chosen by some other person. This category includes a number of instances where children have taken over a house from their father or mother, or where a house has been taken over from some other relative.

3.7 The Main Reason for Choosing the Present House

Housewives were asked “What was the main reason for choosing the present house”? and two groups of reasons emerged. There were those primarily concerned with the dwelling itself and those concerned with the location of the dwelling in relation to work or interests. In some cases a combination of reasons were expressed.

67% of the reasons were concerned with rent, size of house or other features, and 61% with aspects of location. Details are given below:-

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3.8 The Type of House and Garden Wanted

3 8 1 To introduce the discussion of the type of house and garden wanted, questions were asked to discover whether the housewife wanted to move and if so whether she had made any attempt to get another house.

3.8 2 Attempts to Obtain a New House

Housewives were asked the simple direct question “Have you tried to get another house”? and 39% said that they had so tried and had been unsuccessful.

There were considerable differences in the age groups. 50% of the 19 to age group said they had tried to get a new house, compared with 38% of the 36 to 50 age group and only 30% of the 51 and over group.

Housewives with children had a higher proportion who had tried to get a house than housewives without children, 44% compared with 33%.

The proportions of housewives who had tried to move was highest in Glasgow 49%; next highest in Dundee followed by Aberdeen 37%, Edinburgh 36%, medium towns and small towns 27%. The difference between the three cities, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen and medium towns is not of great importance, but the contrast between small towns and the rest is quite marked.

The influence of zone is clearly demonstrated in the great cities. Glasgow has been separated from the rest of the great cities for this analysis.

In Glasgow 57% of housewives in the inner zone have tried to get a new house, 48% of those in the middle zone and 40% of those in the outer zone.

In the other great cities the same pattern is shown at the lower level. 47% of housewives living in the inner zone of Edinburgh, Dundee and Aderdeen have tried to get another house, 36% of those living in the middle zone and only 25% of those living in the outer zone.

The proportion of housewives who had tried to get a new house was greatest amongst those who were already living in tenements 47%, the next highest amongst those already living in flatted houses 19% compared with 11% of those who were at present living in 2 - storey self -contained houses.

A comparison between families renting and families owning their homes showed interesting differences - whereas 41% of those renting their house had tried to move, the proportion was only 10% of those owning their house.

The age of dwelling was likewise an important consideration, 46% of housewives living in old houses - those built before 1914 - wanted to move, compared with only 17% of housewives living in houses built between 1919 and 1939.

The present dwellings of housewives were grouped as to whether they were in an open or a congested situation. 50% a housewives living in a congested area had tried to get a new house, compared with only 25% of those living in districts classed as open.

Another aspect of neighbourhood is reflected in the differences between noisy neighbourhoods and quiet neighbourhoods. 49% of housewives living in noisy neighbourhoods have tried to move, compared with only 29% of those living in quiet neighbourhoods.

It will be seen from these results that the desire to move is a complex of many factors some of which are concerned with the housewife herself, some with the house in which she lives and others with the neighbourhood.

The reasons why they had been unsuccessful in getting a new house were given in about half of the cases and of these most related to attempts to obtain a house from the local authority. The largest proportion of these were on a waiting list. Others had been refused because their need was judged not to be sufficiently great.

3.8 3 Housewives were asked “Whether they have had a chance to move to another house”? Some 6% said they had had such a chance, but had not taken it for various reasons; over a third of these were reasons of location and a further sixth were reasons connected with features of the house.

3.8 4 Housewives who want to Move

Housewives were asked if they would move if they could find a house which suited them better than their present house and 71% said that they would move.

The proportions who wish to move were higher in the large towns and smaller in the small towns. For example 80% to Glasgow housewives were willing to move, 74% of Edinburgh housewives, 61% of Dundee housewives, 75% of Aberdeen housewives 69% of housewives in medium towns, but only 54% of housewives in small towns.

There were differences between the inner and middle zones and outer zones of the great cities. For example, in Glasgow 87% of housewives living in the inner zone and 85% of those living in the middle zone were willing to move, compared with 64% of housewives living in the outer zone. In Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen the proportions were 75% in the inner zone, 75% in the middle zone, but only 58% in the outer zone.

There were very marked differences between the views of housewives living in different types of houses. These are in one way an indication of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with certain types of housing.

The group with the highest proportion who would be willing to move are those living in tenements - 79%. The next highest group are those living in flatted houses. 54% and the lowest those living in two -storey self -contained houses - 38%.

Willingness to move differed also according to the ownership of the house; this, of course, reflects also on the type of house since a greater proportion of tenements are owned by factors. 79% of the tenants of privately owned houses were willing to move, compared with 56% of the tenants of local authorities and 43% of owner occupiers.

The age of dwelling also affects the willingness to move - 77% of housewives living in old houses (pre 1914) would move, compared with 50% of those living in new houses (built 1919 - 1939).

Neighbourhood was another important factor. This is shown by the fact that 82% of housewives living in congested neighbourhoods would be willing to move, compared with 57% of those living in open neighbourhoods and similarly 80%

of housewives living in noisy neighbourhoods would move, compared with 62% of housewives living in quiet neighbourhoods.

The highest proportion willing to move was found in the youngest age group; 85% compared with 71% in the 36 - 50 years age group and only 59% of those aged 51 and over.

A higher proportion of housewives with children were willing to move than those without, 77% compared with 63%.

It will be seen from these results that willingness to move is very closely related to the analysis of attempts to move that have already been made and are influenced by the same complex of factors.

3.8 5 The Type of House Preferred

Housewives who said that they were willing to move were asked “What sort of house they would prefer”? The type most preferred was the bungalow or single storey self-contained house which was the choice of 39% of those who wished to move. The flatted house was the next most important type which was preferred by 22%, the two-storey self-contained house was preferred by 19% and the tenement by 10%, the terraced house was preferred by 5%.

It will be remembered that some 29% of the housewives were unwilling to move and as about half of these were living in tenements this fact, taken with the result above, argues that about 1 housewife in 4 in Scotland is still prepared to live in the tenement type of dwelling.

A further analysis of the dwellings of those housewives who were unwilling to move may be taken as some indication of satisfaction with different types of dwellings, thus, whereas only 21% of housewives living in tenements are unwilling to move, 46% of housewives living in terraced houses, 46% of housewives living in flatted houses, 62% of housewives living in 2 storey self-contained houses and 66% of those housewives living in bungalows were unwilling to move. This confirms the overwhelming preference for the bungalow.

Figure 7

There were small difference between the towns of different sizes Perference for the bungalow was greatest amongst housewives living in medium size town (51%) and smallest in Dundee (28%). Preference for the flatted type was greatest in Edinburgh (40%) and smallest in medium size town (16%). Apart from this, the pattern was very similar throughout all towns.

The difference between the preferences of housewives living in different zones of large cities were not sufficiently large to be of importance.

The preference for the single storey self-contained house (bungalow) is related to the housewives’ experience of the tenement of flatted house and life in a congested neighourhood.

For example, 29% of housewives living in tenements prefer the bungalow, compared with 19% of housewives living in two storey self-contained houses. Nearly one third of the tenants of old houses expressed this preference, compared with one-fifth of the tenants of post-war houses.

There is also a small difference between the proportion of housewives living in congested areas who expressed this difference and those living in open areas - 29% compared with 25%.

It is clear, therefore, that the desire for the most isolated type of dwelling is in some measure a reaction from living in the most congested dwelling places.

The bungalow was generally preferred by housewives in all three age groups, although the preference was most marked in the youngest and oldest age groups. The oldest group had the largest proportion preferring the tenement - 13% with 9% in the 36 to 50 age group and only 6% in the 19 to 35 age group.

The main difference between the preferences of the group of housewives with children compared with those without was that a larger proportion of housewives with children preferred the two-storey self-contained type - 23% compared with 14%, whereas a larger proportion of those without children preferred the flatted type - 24% compared with 20% or tenement type - 12% compared with 8%. These differences are not important.

These preferences may be considered in another way if the preferences for all the types of dwelling of one floor is compared with the preferences for dwellings of two floors (or more). Thus preferences for the bungalow, the flatted house and the tenement amount to 71% of the sample and preferences for the two storey self-contained house and terraced house to 15% of the sample.

3.8 6 Willingness to pay more rent

Housewives were asked whether they would be prepared to pay more rent for the house of their choice. 67% were willing, 24% were unwilling and 9% were unable to give an answer.

The proportion willing to pay more rent was much higher in the youngest age group, 80% compared with 70% in the 36 - 50 age group and 50% in the 51 and over age group.

The proportion was highest amongst those housewives who wished to live in a two storey self-contained house, next highest amongst those who preferred a bungalow, and next amongst those who preferred the flatted type of dwelling.

3.8 7 Gardens

Housewives were asked what sort of garden they would prefer, a private garden, a communal garden or no garden at all. If the choice were for a private garden, the housewife was asked if it were preferred for it to be near home or at some distance from it, that is to say, an allotment.

74% of the housewives who wished to move wanted a private garden, 16% preferred a communal garden, 6% said that they did not want a garden at all and 4% were unable to give an opinion.

Housewives in the older groups had a greater proportion who preferred the communal type of garden or who wished to have no garden at all.

19% of those over 51 preferred the communal type of garden, 16% of those who were 36 to 50 years and 13% of the 19 to 35 year group. 12% of those over 51 did not want a garden compared with 5% of those 36 to 50 years old and only 2% of those 19 to 35 years.

The only difference between the preferences of housewives with children and those without was that whereas only 4% of housewives with children said they did not want a garden, 10% of those without children expressed this preference.

Almost all housewives said they wanted a garden near their home (97%), only 1% said that they would prefer to have their garden at some distance from the house. There was a small group (3%) who said they would like both a garden near their home and an allotment.

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3.9 The Location of the New Dwelling

3.9 1 Housewives who were willing to move to a house that would suit them better were asked “Where they would like to live”. The information, however, to be fully appreciated needs to be interpreted together with the information about those who expressed an unwillingness to move at all. A large proportion in every case were only willing to move to a new house in a similar situation to their present one.

In order to obtain a true picture of all housewives who are willing to move to a new area and to appreciate their wishes about the communities in which they would like to live, this proportion should be added to those who would not move at all.

60% of housewives living in large cities said that they wished to go on living in large cities. There were 25% who did not want to move, so that altogether, of housewives living in large cities, 85% wished to continue living in large cities, 2% wished to live in small burghs and 8% wished to live in the country.

Of the housewives at present living in medium towns 42% wished to live in a small burgh and 31% were unwilling to move, making 73% who wished to remain in a town similar to that in which they are now living. 13% wished to move to a large city, 10% wanted to live in the country and 2% wanted to live by the sea.

Of the housewives living in small towns 39% wished to go on living in a small burgh, 46% were unwilling to move; thus 85% of the housewives in small towns wished to remain in small towns, 6% wished to live in large cities and 5% in the country.

The largest single group who wanted to move, were the 13% of medium town housewives who wanted to move to large cities.

It is clear from these proportions that only between a quarter and one-fifth of all housewives are willing to move to a community other than that in which they are at present living. Even the group of those who wish to move contain some who want to move to the place where they were brought up, this being only another aspect of the same attitude.

In the analysis of the influence of zone the same tendency to go on living in the part of the large city, where the housewife is already established is shown. There is some evidence of a desire to move from the inner zone to the outer, and this, together with the unwillingness of a large proportion of housewives to move from the outer zone is no doubt an indication of satisfaction with this zone. There is a large proportion of young housewives living in the outer zones.

Adding the proportion of housewives who do not want to move to the proportion who wish to go on living in the same zone as at present it is shown that 40% of housewives living in the inner zone wish to remain, 50% of those living in the middle zone wish to remain there and 62% of those living in the outer zone wish to remain there. This may be taken as an index of satisfaction with the neighbourhood lived in.

3.9. 2 The subsequent analyses are confined to housewives who wish to move .

Of these 57% wished to live in large cities, 29% in small burghs, 13% in the country and 1% wished to live by the sea. This last is not really a separate category since a very large number of Scottish towns and cities are near to the sea.

Of those who wished to live in great cities the largest proportion wanted to live in the outer zone - 29%, 20% wanted to live in the middle zone and only 10% in the inner zone.

A detailed analysis of where housewives wished to live made in relation to their present dwelling place is given below:-

3.9 3 Reasons for Preferring Certain Locations for the Future Dwelling

As would be expected the reasons in many cases for choosing the future dwelling place were different in relation to different places. Four main groups, predominated in the total picture. These were ‘Near to work’ which accounted for 20% of the answers, “Always lived here or too old to move”, ‘Unwilling to move from the present area’ 18%, ‘Healthier’ 14% and ‘Better for children’ 8%. This group of 18% is a further illustration of the element of conservatism which is so important in all problems of choice.

The main reasons for wanting to live in a large city was ‘Near to Work’ which was given by 26% of housewives who expressed a desire to live in a large city, some 15% gave health reasons, but almost all of these wished to live in the outer zone. A further 11% wanted to live in the city because they had always lived there.

The largest group of housewives who wished to live in a small burghs were 39% who had always lived in small burghs and did not wish to move away from the community where they had become established, and 17% wished to live in a small burgh to be near their work. Of the group of housewives who wished to live in the country 32% wished to do so because it was healthier, 17% because it would be better for their children and 13% because it would be quieter and cleaner. There was a considerable group of 19% who had been brought up in the country and wanted to return.

Within the group who wished to live in the large city there were considerable differences between the preference expressed for living in the different zones. 40% of those who wished to live in the inner zone wished to live there because they were near their work, compared with 36% of those in the middle zone and 12% who wished to live in the outer zone. 17% of those who wished to live in the inner zone had always lived there, compared with 16% in the middle zone and only 5% in the outer zone. Whereas only 1% of those who wished to live in the inner zone wished to live there for health reasons, 7% who wished to live in the middle zone gave this reason and 26% of those who wished to live in the outer zone. Details are below:-

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3.10 Convenience - The Relation of the Home to Interests

3.10 1 This section is an attempt to evaluate the importance of different interests to housewives as a whole and to arrive at some quantitative measure of convenience in terms of time and distance.

So far convenience has been mainly discussed in relation to those housewives for whom the interest was important, but to assess this in relation to all housewives the data has been analysed again using all housewives as the basis.

The local shopping centre was the interest about which the greatest proportion of housewives said that it was very important that it should be near their home, the main shopping centre was the next most important, followed by the place of worship, cinema, parks and elementary school. Details are given below:-

It will be seen from this that there are several interests which play a very large part in the lives of housewives, but to which housewives are prepared to go some distance. This is true particularly of the cinema of which 21% say that it is not important that it should be near their home and place of worship of which 14% say that it is not important that it should be near their home.

3.10 2 An analysis has been made of the distance travelled and time taken to visit the place of work, the local shopping centre, the main shopping centre and the place of worship to show what distance and times are considered by the housewife to be convenient or inconvenient.

The journey to work was for most housewives a short one. Only 14% of them said that their home was not conveniently situated to their work but the numbers, when broken down into the distances travelled, were too small to allow definite conclusions to be drawn. They do, however, suggest that all distances up to 600 yds. are regarded as being reasonably near to work as will be seen from the table below.

The Analysis of the time taken to go to work showed a shorter range of distance, but suggested that distances up to 22 minutes were considered convenient, although the proportion saying that the distance to work was not convenient was too small to be conclusive.

Analysis of the distance travelled to the local shopping centre showed that most of the housewives who thought the local shopping centre was not conveniently situated to their home had more than 600 yards to travel. These were 70% of those who thought their home was not conveniently situated to the local shopping centre

Most housewives had a brief journey to their local shopping centre. A large proportion of those having to travel for more than 12 minutes thought that the shopping centre was not conveniently situated to their home.

Visits to the main shopping centres when analysed by distance, showed significant diîference in the proportions considering it convenient to their home. Whereas almost all thought the main shopping centre convenient when it was within 600 yards nearly one-third considered it not convenient when it was over 1½ miles.

Analysis by time shows a similar picture except that an appreciable proportion of those with journeys up from 13 to 22 minutes think their situation is not convenient. The proportion becomes large - over one-third in the case of journeys of more than 23 minutes.

Analysis of the results of visits to the place of worship showed that in relation to this subject information was more definite about the inconvenience of longer journeys. Over a half of those having a journey of over 1¼ miles considered that the home was not conveniently placed in relation to the church or chapel.

3.10 3 The Zones in which the wife lives and has her interest

Another facet of the problem of the relation of the home to interests is zones in which the homes and interests are found, that is to say to what extent wives living in large towns go outside the zone where they are living in order to work, shop, or to spend their leisure.

As the total number of housewives who were working is rather small, it is not possible to be very conclusive about the relation of the zone in which the home is found to the zone in which housewives work. The numbers suggest however that in almost all cases the wife works in the same zone as that in which she lives.

In the case of local shopping centre, 79% of housewives living in the inner zone also shop there, 76% of housewives living in the middle zone also shop there and 69% of those living in the outer zone shop there too.

This may be looked at in another way; of all those housewives who shop in the inner zone 86% of them live there, of all those who shop in the middle zone 94% of them live there and of all those who shop in the outer zone 96% of them live there. These facts show an interesting limitation on the travelling from zone to zone in respect of local shopping centres and indicates that most of the journeys are from the outer zone to the middle and inner zones, although there is little traffic each way. Thus 4% of those who shop in the outer zone come from the middle zone, 4% of those shopping in the middle zone come from the outer zone, 9% of those shopping in the inner zone come from the middle zone and 5% from the outer zone.

The situation in relation to the main shopping centre is very different and demonstrates clearly that the main shopping centre in most large cities is found in the inner zone. 79% of all main shopping centres were in the inner zone, 3% in the middle, 1% in the outer zone and from 17% of the sample were unable to obtain the information about the housewives, main shopping centre.

For housewives living in the inner zone 85% used a main shopping centre in that zone, for housewives living in the middle zone 5% found their main shopping centre in their own zone and 79% went to the inner zone, and of housewives living in the outer zone only 2% found their main shopping centre in their zone, 5% in the middle zone and 73% in the outer zone.

Thus of all those who did their main shopping in the inner zone 33% lived there, 43% lived in the middle zone and 24% in the outer zone.

In relation to the primary school the overwhelming proportion of all housewives sent their children to schools in their own zone, although there was a slight tendency for a small proportion of housewives living in the outer and middle zones to send their children to schools in zones nearer the centre of the city. This tendency was also demonstrated in relation to secondary schools and children’s playgrounds.

Analysis of housewives’ visits to parks replaces the centripetal tendency that has been seen by a centrifugal one, particularly in relation to main shopping centres. Thus 40% of housewives living in the inner zone went to parks in this zone, 51% of those living in the middle zone went to parks in their zone and 67% of those living in the outer zone went to parks there. On the other hand of all those going to parks in the inner zone 88% lived there, of those going to parks in the middle zone 71% lived there, 25% came from the inner zone and 4% from the outer zone. The visitors to parks in the outer zone, were made up of 27% from the inner zone, 33% from the middle zone and 40% of those already living in the outer zone. The figures for sports grounds, although very small, suggest the same tendency.

In general it follows that housewives work and do their local shopping in their own zone and tend to go towards the centre of the town for almost all their interests except such as parks and sports grounds where the tendency is to go from the centre of the town outwards.