Measuring Exterior Housing Quality in Four Older-Urban Neighbourhoods in Windsor, Ontario

Four theoretically-deduced hypotheses about geographical and temporal variations in exterior housing quality within a neighbourhood are summarized as a renovation- or deterioration-of-self effect, a contagion-down-the-street effect, a distance-from-riverbank effect, and a distance-from core effect. These hypotheses are tested with data for the exterior conditions of hundreds of single- detached (-like) houses that have been individually surveyed twice with the same instrument in four older-urban neighbourhoods in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Each surveyed house’s rated conditions of 12 exterior attributes are in particular utilized to calculate its overall exterior quality as a percentage above or below normal. Findings are that houses’ exteriors had average “normal” weathered conditions for Canada. Even so, overall exterior housing qualities in three neighbourhoods exemplified a hypothesized deterioration-of-self effect and proximity-to-core effect, as they had especially declined from their original survey to their resurvey for houses located near to a core such as downtown or a casino. In addition, the hypothesized distance-from-riverbank effect was observed in one neighbourhood where overall exterior housing quality linearly deteriorated with farther distance from a riverbank. Finally, overall exterior housing qualities had no observable contagion-down-the-street effect, and so, residents were not reacting positively or negatively to their neighbours’ maintenance and improvement of their homes’ exteriors. The practical implications of the study’s findings are discussed in the conclusion.