Effects of Housing Type and Income Level on Residents’ Sense of Community

Sun Ja Kim and Jun-Hyung Kim (2026. 8), "Effects of Housing Type and Income Level on Residents’ Sense of Community," Housing Studies Review, 34(3): 39-65.
김선자·김준형 (2026. 8), “주택유형과 소득이 공동체의식에 미치는 영향”, 「주택연구」, 34(3): 39-65

Abstract

The large-scale replacement of single-family houses with apartments is often mentioned as a key reason for the weakening of neighborhood-based sense of community. Yet empirical work on this topic has generally relied on small, convenience samples and has not fully controlled for household characteristics. This study examines whether the sense of community differs across housing types when income and other household traits are taken into account. To do so, it uses the 2022 Seoul Survey, which covers 20,000 households and is designed to represent the entire city. Descriptive analysis confirms that sense of community varies by housing type and that income is unevenly distributed across dwelling categories, underscoring the need for multivariate control. Ordered logit models are then estimated with each community-related item as the dependent variable and housing type, income, and other household characteristics as independent variables. The estimates show that apartments have a significantly negative effect on sense of community compared with single-family housing. Apartments appear to reduce everyday interaction among residents, make it easier to remain anonymous, and heighten the likelihood of conflicts between adjacent neighboring households. In contrast, multi-family housing is associated with a stronger sense of community than single-family housing. Given that multi-family housing is generally denser, this result suggests that a strong sense of community is not simply a function of low residential density.

Keywords

Housing Type, Sense of Community, Single-family Housing, Apartment, Ordered Logistic Model