Home is the place to be! Intentions to stay and age@home in rural areas and rural risk areas

Home is the place to be! Intentions to stay and age@home in rural areas  

In addition to demographic trends, environmental disasters and climate change also influence residents’ decisions about whether to stay in a particular place.This dissertation investigates ‘why’ and ‘how’ ageing rural homeowners intend to stay and age@home in the Netherlands, Northern Netherlands and Groningen earthquake area, despite potentially declining amenities and/or risks and damage. Land Registry data, data from the Homeowners’ Association and published interviews were used.

The main motive for rural homeowners to age@home is ‘place attachment’, in the sense of house attachment and/or neighbourhood attachment. Rural homeowners with a partner and/or those aged 75-plus are more likely to intend to stay. Homeowners in the earthquake area prefer to adapt their own owner-occupied home or plan to rent. Another group of homeowners here often has not given this any thought yet. 

Single ageing homebuyers with previous experience of living in the earthquake area were more likely to (re)buy a house there. Place attachment, social attachment and ‘insiders’ risk perception create a local housing market. Homeowners with damage to their dwellings became aware of their physical and social house attachment. The decision to stay is an ongoing ‘cycle of reconsideration and renegotiation’, interrupted by each new earthquake and damage.In order to stay independently, rural homeowners are more positive about multigenerational living than their urban counterparts. Furthermore, homeowners aged 55-plus from the rural earthquake area are positive about independent group living, like Knarrenhofjes.These findings can be used to develop socio-economic and spatial government policies promoting the viability of rural (risk)communities.