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Culture and Housing Preferences in a Developing City

Article  in  Environment and Behavior · January 2005

DOI: 10.1177/0013916504267640

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ENVIRONMENT AND BEHA
10.1177/0013916504267640
Jabareen / CULTURE AND VIOR / January
HOUSING 2005
PREFERENCES

CULTURE AND HOUSING

PREFERENCES IN A
DEVELOPING CITY

YOSEF JABAREEN, Ph.D., M.Sc., is a visiting scholar at the Department of Urban

Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. His re-
search interests include cities in conflict and nationalism, orientalism, and recon-
struction in Iraq and Afghanistan.

ABSTRACT: This article aims to ground the relations between culture and housing
preferences in a developing city with empirical analysis. Based on Amos Rapoport’s
framework, this study dismantles the term “culture” into different components and
tests their significance as predictors of housing preferences in Gaza City. Based on
1,269 face-to-face interviews with adults in the city, this study concludes that housing
preferences in Gaza are determined by components of culture, mainly those related to
issues of gender, politics, religion, kinship, and social relations. The findings revealed
that among cultural components, kinship relations and attitudes toward women are
likely to be crucial for individual Palestinians seeking new housing. The present study
is an attempt to move beyond the grand concept of culture to consider its components
and to apply this framework to different cultures.

Keywords: culture; housing; preferences; Gaza; Palestinian

The works of several disciplines, such as cultural anthropology, cultural

geography, architecture, and housing studies, have suggested obvious link-
ages between culture and the physical environment (Pandey, 1990). Culture
expresses itself in both physical objects and subjective responses to the envi-
ronment (Fan Ng, 1998, p. 57). Thus, the concept of culture and its manifes-
tations appears not only in people’s perceptions, beliefs, values, norms,
customs, and behaviors, but also in the designs of objects and in the physical
environment, including houses and neighborhoods (cf. Altman & Chemers,
1980; Malkawi & Al-Qudah, 2003; Ozaki, 2002; Triandis, 1994).

ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR, Vol. 37 No. 1, January 2005 134-146

DOI: 10.1177/0013916504267640
© 2005 Sage Publications

134

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 Jabareen / CULTURE AND HOUSING PREFERENCES 135

Houses express culture, whether through purposeful design or everyday

use. House forms, their internal layouts, and the layout of dwellings in a
neighborhood can be disruptive or supportive of the culture of their occu-
pants (Bochner, 1975; Ozaki, 2002; Rapoport, 1969). Altman and Chemers
(1980), who have analyzed the concept of the home around the world, argue
that family dwellings simultaneously satisfy the needs of the occupants for
personal identity and for bonds with the community and culture at large.
When choosing a residence, individuals and households make two choices:
the type of housing and the type of residential environment. The choice made
by a particular household is guided by needs or preferences and restricted by
income and by opportunities offered by the housing market. The choice of a
specific dwelling, however, is inextricably connected with the choice of the
desired residential environment (Dieleman & Mulder, 2002, p. 35).
There are different methodological approaches to the measurement of
housing preferences (Timmermans, Molin, & Van Noortwijk, 1994). An
important distinction in this context is made between stated and revealed
preferences (Coolen & Hoekstra, 2001, pp. 285-286). Revealed preferences,
which are the type of dwelling that households select when they actually
move, are based on actual housing choices. In contrast, stated preferences,
the focus of this article, are based on intended or hypothetical choices.
Research on housing preferences shows that economic variables such as
income and equity in the house dominate housing-choice patterns. However,
demographic variables, age, and the size of the household also have an
important effect on housing choices (Clark & Dieleman, 1996, p. 135).
Whereas “economic determinism” dominates the research on housing choice
and preferences, little attention is given to the contribution culture makes to
these preferences. A literature review demonstrated the lack of studies that
empirically examine the links between culture and housing preferences, with
the exceptions of the studies of Coolen and Hoekstra (2001) and of Lindberg,
Gärling, and Montgomery (1988, 1989), who study the roles of specific cog-
nitive life values, including health, leisure, money, pleasure, and freedom, in
the context of predictions of residential preferences and simulated residential
choices. Coolen and Hoekstra (2001, p. 286) argue that little is known about
the influence of microlevel motivational factors such as values and goals on
housing preferences. Regarding the relationship between house form and
culture, Ozaki (2002, p. 209) claims, “Although such statements about the
association between culture and house form are widely accepted, supporting
data have infrequently been carefully marshaled.”
For Ralph Linton (1945, p. 4), culture refers to the total way of life of any
society. In this context, culture refers to countless aspects of life. Some
anthropologists think of culture as rules or ideas behind behavior (Holland &

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136 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / January 2005

Quinn, 1987, p. 4); most anthropologists think of culture as including learned

behaviors as well as beliefs, attitudes, values, and ideals that are characteris-
tic of a particular society or population (Ember & Ember, 1998, p. 148). For a
thought or action to be considered cultural, “It must be commonly shared by
some population or group of individuals. Even if some behavior is not com-
monly practiced, it is cultural if most people think it is appropriate” (p. 149).
In other words, culture is a relatively organized system of shared meanings
(Geertz, 1973). In the past, culture was commonly considered to be a mono-
lithic and static concept that could inhibit change (Lawrence, 2000, p. 68).
Today, culture refers to a relativistic and multidimensional concept with its
components evolving over time (Tuan, 1982).
The aim of the present study is to empirically test the contribution of cul-
ture to housing preferences. Because culture refers to countless aspects of
life, it might be broken down to different components to allow empirical
analysis. DiMaggio (1997, p. 263) argues that cultural theory has become
highly sophisticated but not fully operational; hence, it becomes crucial to
identify units and components of cultural analysis instead of treating culture
as a total, or grand, variable. Rapoport (1998, 2000, 2001) argues that cul-
ture, like many grand concepts, needs to be dismantled to become useable.
He suggests that by making the concept of culture more concrete and, hence,
operational, it thereby becomes plausible and one can then begin testing its
components.
According to Rapoport (2001), the components of culture include worldviews
(i.e., values, meanings, norms, standards, expectations, and rules), kinship
and kinship relations, family structure, and social networks. These compo-
nents are assumed to have influence in shaping the built environment.
Although Rapoport (2001) suggests a theoretical and universal model to
encompass the components of culture, the present study was designed to ana-
lyze the Palestinian culture in Gaza City and to test its influence on housing
preferences.

AIM AND HYPOTHESES

The aim of this study is to examine the contributions of cultural compo-

nents on stated housing preferences of residents in a developing city. The
study examines whether different cultural components influence individuals’
preferences in choosing future housing types. Hypotheses on these relation-
ships are based on two fundamentals. The first is related to the assumptions
made within cultural, environmental, and behavioral theories that culture and
cultural components influence people’s attitudes toward housing issues such
as housing preferences.

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 Jabareen / CULTURE AND HOUSING PREFERENCES 137

The second is empirically more specific and relates to the cultural, social,
and housing contexts in Gaza City, where the case study takes place. There-
fore, a pilot study took place in the city prior to the empirical research. In
brief, the aim of the pilot study was to gain a general sense and to elicit the
main components of culture that might be related to housing. Accordingly,
30 unconstructed interviews with a variety of people from different neigh-
borhoods were conducted in Gaza. The main components derived from the
pilot study were attitudes toward the housing environment, social relations,
kinship and kinship relations, women, governance, and religious beliefs. In
brief, the pilot study showed that the vast majority of those interviewed pre-
ferred to live in detached houses rather than the multifamily housing that
emerged in Gaza only after the Oslo Agreement in 1993. The following
hypotheses were formulated accordingly:

Hypothesis 1: Cultural components will be among the significant predictors of

preferred housing type of the participants.

Other predictors might be the socioeconomic and demographic variables

of the participants. Housing preferences are the dependent variables in this
study. They were measured by responses given to some questions. First,
“Given the absence of a detached house option, what type of housing do you
prefer?” The answers to this question included the following: (a) living with
my extended family in the same building; (b) living with religious families in
the same building; and (c) living with families with similar economic status.

Hypothesis 2: Cultural components will be among the significant predictors of the

participants’ attitudes toward living in a high-rise, multifamily housing type.

In the local language, this type of housing is called El-Abraj (the tower).
Accordingly, the participants were asked the second question: “Are you
ready to live in an El-Abraj building?” The answers to this question included
the following: (a) not ready; (b) moderately ready; (c) ready.

RESEARCH SETTING

The hypotheses were explored in Gaza City, the largest Palestinian city
with a population exceeding 400,000 residents. Gaza is one of the oldest cit-
ies in the world and, architecturally, still has traditional and ancient neighbor-
hoods as well as modern ones. The vast majority of the city’s population is
composed of Arab Moslems (98%), and the remaining 2% is composed of

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138 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / January 2005

Arab Christians. In addition, two thirds of the residents are refugees from the
Israeli-Arab wars of 1948 and 1967, and the remaining one third of the resi-
dents are native Gazians. Although most of the refugees live in poor camps
and neighborhoods, a few people live in relatively wealthy neighborhoods.
Gaza is a developing city. International comparison of urban data shows that
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have a unique demography, including the high-
est birth rate (43.14 births per 1,000 residents), fertility rate (6.5 per woman),
and population growth rate (3.97%) in the world (CIA, 2000; Population
Reference Bureau, 2001). The population of Gaza City grew tenfold between
1948 (40,000 residents) and 2002 (400,000 residents) because of the influx
of refugees after the wars of 1948 and 1967, the high fertility and birth rates,
and the relatively low death rate (4.3 deaths per 1,000 residents in 2000).

METHOD

PARTICIPANTS

One way of discovering cultural patterns is by collecting information

from a sample of individuals who belong to the same group (Ember & Ember,
1998). Accordingly, data were collected by means of a survey from July 2000
to September 2000. The survey was part of a comprehensive study on hous-
ing, environment, and culture. The data collection was based on personal
interviews in which questionnaires, written in Arabic, were administered in
Gaza’s six neighborhoods. The questionnaire included demographic and
socioeconomic questions that related to the participants’ households as well
as to their attitudes toward religion, politics, gender, family planning,
housing conditions, and housing preferences.
The survey was conducted a few months before the beginning of the sec-
ond Palestinian “Intifada” (national uprising), which started in October 2000
in Gaza and the West Bank. While the research was conducted, the Gaza
Strip’s borders were relatively open for visitors, which allowed interviewers
to stay in the city for long periods of time. The interviewers (six males and six
females) were taught how to conduct personal interviews. The interviewers
were instructed to interview one member of each selected household who
was more than 18 years old. The interviewers selected only one household in
every fifth residential building (i.e., they selected buildings numbered 5, 10,
etc.). Ultimately, 1,269 adults were interviewed in their apartments. Among
them, 56.7% were females and 43.3% were males.

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 Jabareen / CULTURE AND HOUSING PREFERENCES 139

MEASURES

Because demographic, socioeconomic, and housing condition variables

are assumed to be predictors of housing preferences, they were also recorded
by the questionnaire. The variables included the following demographic
characteristics: age, gender, education, and residential condition (e.g., length
of residence in the apartment, its housing density, the physical apartment
conditions, and the number of floors in the building). Neighborhood condi-
tions included noise, safety, and satisfaction. In addition, there were the eco-
nomic and residential indexes. Table 1 describes these 22 variables and
presents their means and standard deviations.
The economic index (Cronbach’s α = 0.77) was calculated according to
standardization methods because different scales measure its variables. The
final index included seven variables: household income; number of cars;
whether the apartment had a telephone, computer, and air-conditioner; the
household’s ownership of private land in the city; and each participant’s eval-
uation of the economic status of his or her household. The residential index
(Cronbach’s α = 0.80) was also calculated using the same method. The final
index (after eliminating four variables) includes four variables: the number
of rooms in the apartment, the density (persons per room), the number of
beds in the apartment, and the interviewee’s satisfaction with the neighbor-
hood.

CULTURAL COMPONENTS

The cultural component included the following variables and indexes:

1. Religious belief. “Religion is directing my behavior. Agree, partly agree, or

disagree.”
2. Index of attitudes toward women. The index of attitudes toward women
(Cronbach’s α = 0.76) was calculated according to a 1-3 Likert index, where 1
represents traditional attitudes (conservative) and 3 represents liberal atti-
tudes. The index includes three items: “Women should be allowed to work
outside their homes”; “Women should be allowed to go to the market without
being accompanied”; and “Boys and girls should attend separate schools.”
3. Index of political attitudes. This index was also calculated according to a 1-
3 Likert index. The final index (Cronbach’s α = 0.71) includes three items: “It
is better to vote for a relative in local elections”; “Governance should be based
on democracy”; and “What is the best regime?” Here, three options were
given: democracy, Islamic rule (Sharia), and a mix of democracy and Islamic
rule.

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 140
TABLE 1
Descriptive Statistics: Demographic, Socioeconomic, and Residential Conditions Variables

Variable Description M SD

Age Age of respondent 36.7 11.4

Gender 43.3% male, 56.7% female 0.34 0.49
Household size Persons living in the apartment 7.1 3.5
No. of nuclear families in household 1.2 0.61
Education Years respondent attended school 11.3 4.2
Length of residence in neighborhood Years of residence 15.6 15.1
Length of residence in apartment Years of residence 10.11 11.11
Housing density Persons per room 1.8 0.61
No. of apartments in building 10.91 15.48
No. of floors in building 4.22 3.90
Apartment area Measured by square meters 135.5 47.3
No. of rooms in apartment 4.20 1.10
Physical apartment conditions 1 = bad, 2 = moderate, 3 = good 2.39 0.70
Satisfaction with neighborhood (1-3) 1 = not satisfied; 3 = highly satisfied 2.2 0.84
Raising children in the neighborhood (1-3) 1 = bad; 3 = very good 2.14 0.85
Satisfaction with the apartment 2.33 0.83
Neighborhood safety (1-3) 1 = not safe; 3 = highly safe 2.81 0.46
Quality of air 2.50 0.57

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(1-3) 1 = not clean; 3 = highly clean
Noise in neighborhood (1-3) 1 = noisy; 3 = not noisy 2.28 0.76
Residential condition index (1-3) 1 = bad; 3 = good 2.56 0.67
Economic index (1-3) 1 = bad; 3 = good 2.06 0.76
 Jabareen / CULTURE AND HOUSING PREFERENCES 141

4. Social relations. These were measured by the following question: “How do

you define the social relations among the building’s residents? Bad, partly
good, or good.”
5. Kinship relations. These were measured by the following question: “Who
lives in your residential building? Different nuclear families or nuclear fami-
lies with kinship ties between them.”
6. Attitudes toward kinship and housing. “Is it important that members of ex-
tended families live in the same neighborhood. Agree, partly agree, or
disagree.”

HOUSING PREFERENCES

Housing preferences, the dependent variables in this study, were mea-

sured by two questions. First, “With the absence of the detached house
option, what type of housing do you prefer?” The answers to this question
included: (a) living with an extended family in the same building; (b) living
with religious families in the same building; (c) living with families with sim-
ilar economic status. In assigning the categories of housing preferences, we
assume that living with an extended family (1) is the most conservative of the
categories and that living with families with similar economic status (3) is the
most liberal. Living with religious families (2) was assumed to be less con-
servative than living with an extended family because this type is not limited
to kinship.
The second question was: “Are you ready to live in an El-Abraj building?”
The answers to this question were: (a) not ready; (b) moderately ready; and
(c) ready.

RESULTS

The question of housing preferences without the option of choosing a

detached house showed that 50% of the respondents preferred living with an
extended family in the same building, about 42% preferred living with fami-
lies with similar economic status, and the remaining 8% preferred living with
religious families in the same building. Stepwise multiple regression analysis
was used to predict housing preference type. The variables entered into the
stepwise multiple regression included the demographic, socioeconomic, and
housing condition variables that appear in Table 1 and the cultural components
shown in Table 2.
The analysis found eight variables that significantly predicted housing
type preferences. Six of them were cultural components. Kinship relations

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142 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / January 2005

was more predictive than any other variable and accounted for 19% of the
variation of housing preferences of housing type. This variable, combined
with the index of attitudes toward women, contributed 28% of the variation of
housing preferences. The remaining significant predictors of housing prefer-
ences, indicated in Table 3, contributed only 6% to the variation. In contrast,
demographic variables, and most socioeconomic variables, did not enter into
the stepwise regression analysis. In a wider sense, the regression model sug-
gests that people who live with an extended family, who have traditional
(conservative) attitudes toward women and politics, who are religious, who
are satisfied with their neighborhood, and who are less educated are more
likely to prefer living with extended family.
The results of the readiness to live in multifamily housing in Table 4 show
that 43.7% of the respondents were not ready to live in this type of housing,
22.8% of them were partly ready, and the remaining 33.5% were ready. To
test the second hypothesis about readiness to live in a multifamily building,
the same independent variables used in testing the first hypothesis were
entered into the stepwise regression. The analysis yielded eight predictors for
readiness to live in a multifamily residential building. Seven predictors were
related to cultural expressions, and only one predictor (education) was
related to socioeconomic variables. Similar to the results of the first hypothe-
sis, kinship relations (β = –0.52) were found to be the strongest predictor
among those that explained 27% of the variation, whereas the other seven
predictors explained only about 5%. The regression model showed that peo-
ple who are religious and who are conservative in their attitudes toward
women and politics were likely to reject living in multifamily buildings. Sim-
ilarly, people who had resided for a number of years in their current apart-
ment and who have good social relations with their neighbors in the building
and with others in the neighborhood were also found to reject living in such
housing.

DISCUSSION

Previous studies have theorized that causal relations exist between cul-
ture and the physical form of housing (Cunningham, 1973; Jordanova, 1989;
Mumford, 1970; Ozaki, 2002; Rapoport, 1969). In line with this, the present
study demonstrates solid empirical links between cultural components and
stated housing preferences. Essentially, through its empirical evidence, the
present study supports previous theoretical statements suggesting associa-
tions between culture and housing preferences.

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 Jabareen / CULTURE AND HOUSING PREFERENCES 143

TABLE 2
Univariate Statistics of Cultural Indexes and Variables

Index/Variable Max Min M SD

Attitudes toward women 3 1 1.94 0.62 0.76

“Women should dress according
to the Islamic Sharia.” 3 1 2.75 0.47
“Women should go to the market
unaccompanied.” 3 1 2.83 0.48
“Women should be able to work
outside their homes.” 3 1 2.86 0.45
Attitudes toward governance 3 1 2.04 0.54 0.71
The best governance type 3 1 1.84 0.79
“It is better to vote for a relative in
local elections.” 3 1 1.71 0.72
“Governance should be based on
democratic principles.” 3 1 2.71 0.59
Religious beliefs 3 1 2.55 0.54
Attitude toward kinship and housing 3 1 1.93 0.83
Kinship relations 2 1 1.65 0.47
Social relations 3 1 2.74 0.55

TABLE 3
Standardized Regression Coefficients and Adjusted R 2 Values for Stepwise
Regression of Variables Predicting Preferences of Housing Type (N = 947)

Adjusted
Step Variable Entered R2

1 Kinship between families in a residential building 0.44*** 0.19***

2 Index of attitudes toward women 0.30*** 0.28***
3 Index of political attitudes 0.16*** 0.30***
4 Neighborhood satisfaction 0.12*** 0.31***
5 Education 0.10*** 0.31***
6 Religious belief 0.09** 0.32***
7 Attitude toward kinship and housing 0.09*** 0.33***
8 Social relations among neighbors 0.07* 0.34***
*p < .01. **p < .001. ***p < .0001.

This study concludes that housing preferences in Gaza are determined by

components of culture, mainly those related to gender, politics, religion, kin-
ship, and social relations. The findings revealed that among cultural compo-
nents, kinship relations and attitudes toward women are likely to be crucial

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144 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / January 2005

TABLE 4
2
Standardized Regression Coefficients and Adjusted R
Values for Stepwise Regression of Variables Predicting
Readiness to Live in Multifamily Building (N = 975)

Adjusted
Step Variable Entered R2

1 Kinship relations in a residential building –0.52**** 0.27****

2 Index of attitudes toward women 0.15**** 0.29****
3 Education 0.10**** 0.30****
4 Social relations in the residential building –0.08* 0.30****
5 Length of residence in the apartment –0.09* 0.31****
6 Index of political attitudes 0.07** 0.31****
7 Religious belief –0.06* 0.31****
8 Social relation in the neighborhood –0.06* 0.32****
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ****p < .0001.

for individual Palestinians seeking new housing. In a wider sense, Palestin-

ians are more likely to prefer living close to their extended families and are
less likely to prefer multifamily housing, which might interfere with their pri-
vacy and, more importantly, the privacy of women in their household.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, Palestinians have been struggling
for their independence. They have not succeeded in establishing an inde-
pendent state, a state that should also take care of their housing issues. Mean-
while, the Palestinians in Gaza are managing their housing issues without the
help of a national state or any formal institution. It can be assumed that the
absence of national independence and of modern state institutions in Gaza
has enhanced, or at least preserved, the importance of kinship relations,
mainly the status of the extended family. This may help us understand why
kinship and social relations are central in determining housing preferences in
Gaza.
When a Palestinian state is established in the future, the state will need to
handle housing issues. This study implies that any future planning and devel-
opment of housing for the Palestinian society in general, and for Gaza in par-
ticular, should consider these cultural components and should plan in
keeping with the spirit of the people. By doing so, it will be possible to
achieve appropriate and sustainable housing and to avoid some of the social
and cultural pitfalls of the modern public housing in Europe, the United
States, and developing countries.
In consideration of this goal, the present study is an attempt to move
beyond the grand concept of culture to consider its components and to

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 Jabareen / CULTURE AND HOUSING PREFERENCES 145

understand housing preferences through these components. This study may

not lend itself to generalized findings or be applicable to other cultures;
however, it does allow us to conceptualize the housing preferences and cul-
tural relations matrix. In sum, this study calls for more theorizing and more
empirical studies of the cultural components that influence people’s hous-
ing preferences. Future research should focus on different cultures, assuming
that each culture may have its specific cultural components that may in-
fluence people’s preferences. It will be important to identify the components
of a culture, to clarify which components significantly influence housing
preferences, and to determine how each component influences people’s
preferences.

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