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Consideration needs to be given to the difference [that] the diversity of cities makes to theory.Robinson (2002, p. 549)

South Africa has long been an intriguing subject of study, particularly for scholars from the United States. The intensification and dismantling of the apartheid state offers a wealth of material to political scientists and social movement theorists. As the African country with the highest White population, race relations are always in the foreground, as they are in most studies of U.S. urban (and suburban) policy, while they are only just beginning to be taken as a serious ‘issue’ in European social science. U.S. scholars may occasionally look at South Africa as if it were a distorted mirror.¹ Depending on one's perspective, as well as the focus of the study, South Africa can be taken as a hopeful symbol of reconciliation or as a warning of the great difficulty in overcoming decades of oppression and systemic inequality. This chapter focuses on the generally overlooked aspect of suburbanization in South Africa, which, surprisingly enough, in certain respects looks very much like U.S. suburbanization.

Private sector residential property investors aiming to achieve optimal total returns need to be able to identify the best performing suburbs in a city. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the risk‐adjusted investment performance of 19 suburbs within Auckland City and provide some insight into the likely future performance of some of these suburbs.

The annual pre‐tax and unleveraged investment performance of a residential property is a function of the changes in the value of the property plus the net yield. House price data for the suburbs were taken from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand. Rental information was obtained from the Department of Building and Housing.

Surprisingly, the suburb showing the highest average yields was also the suburb recording the greatest increase in house prices. This result appears to be a consequence of government intervention in the form of increased rental subsidies for renters, tax concessions for landlords and low‐deposit home loans aimed for first home buyers.

It is all very well analysing the past performance of suburbs but investors are likely to be more interested in future performance, rather than past performance, when they make buying and selling decisions. In some cases, the characteristics of suburbs that have done well in the past can be useful in identifying suburbs likely to do well in the future.

The hypothesis advanced in this paper is that suburbs with lower than average household income to house price ratios and house income to rent ratios, combined with a trend for household incomes and rents to be increasing above the city‐wide average, are likely to be the best prospects for future residential investment.

The main social implication appears to be the unintended consequences of rental subsidies increasing rents and house prices more than the average in the lower priced suburbs.

There has been very little published work comparing total returns on investor housing within a city, by suburb. This has been made possible by the combination of real estate sales information and a comprehensive rental database. In addition, census information on households' incomes at suburban level is also integrated into the study.The study also makes a novel contribution by suggesting variables likely to influence future total returns by suburb.

Previous research suggests that household location choice is determined by factors, such as affordability, family life cycle, distance from work and accessibility to the city centre. The purpose of this paper is to understand other psychological factors that may influence this decision, and specifically the effects of self identity and neighbourhood identity.

A qualitative methodology using an interpretive approach is adopted, seeking to understand the complex nature of reality. In‐depth interviews were carried out with eight experienced real estate agents working in two affluent suburbs close to Auckland's central business district in New Zealand.

Findings suggest that, subject to factors such as affordability and availability of appropriate accommodation, individual identity and suburb identity play an important role in determining neighbourhood choice. In addition to these findings, the paper proposes a conceptual model of the construction and manifestation of suburb identity incorporating both the results of the study and an understanding of the extant literature.

The study is not an attempt to generalise its results and therefore further research into neighbourhood branding and how it links to suburb choice is recommended

The study also adds a further behavioural dimension to the understanding of a collective interpretation of cities. Since part of the unique character of a city is reflected through its residents, planners need to understand what attracts different types of people to a city.

Whilst preliminary, the implications of this study emphasise the importance for valuers and real estate agents of understanding the type of people who are attracted to particular neighbourhoods, how these individuals perceive themselves and why they are attracted to specific locations.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the Ripple Effect of house prices at an inter-suburban level of analysis in the Sydney metropolitan area. By doing this, more practical information of price transmission can be provided to improve residential real estate purchasing decisions of market participants. Equity from residential real estate is a major component of household wealth and is frequently used to improve and upgrade homes. With the ever-increasing prices of real estate in Sydney making more efficient purchasing decisions can grow this wealth quicker allowing a household to obtain financial related goals at a quicker pace.

Using a two-stage sampling technique strings of adjoining suburbs from different Sydney regions were analysed using a combination of price graphs, Engle–Granger and Johansen co-integration techniques and Granger causality tests.

Pairwise co-integration was lacking throughout the various suburb strings, whereas multivariate co-integration was found in the lower priced areas further from the central business district, as these areas also experience less price volatility. The geographical location of suburbs therefore plays an important role in the ability to predict an individual suburb’s price movements. For a prominent Ripple Effect to exist at this level the best conditions would consist of a singular demand centre with restricted geographical space to which this demand can spread. Causal pathways were subsequently mapped for each suburb string identifying price transmission pathways and confirming support that while the standard Ripple Effect does not exist at an inter-suburban level, it is still possible to predict price movements by considering the price behaviour of surrounding suburbs.

This paper adds to the literature by examining the Ripple Effect across different suburbs in Sydney. This is done via an extensive search through the literature and analysing recent real estate data.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games on the residential real estate markets of the host city during the bidding, pre-Olympic and post-Olympic periods.

This study uses a difference-in-differences model to analyze the transaction prices for all properties in New South Wales, Australia for the period from 1980 to 2007.

The paper finds that the impact on real estate markets varies across different suburbs in the host city and over time. The real estate markets of host suburbs experience substantially higher growth during the bidding and pre-Olympic periods but not during the post-Olympic period. However, the property prices in non-host suburbs in the host city increase at a higher rate during the pre- and post-Olympic periods but not during the bidding period.

This study offers insights into the long-term impact of the Olympic Games on host suburbs and non-host suburbs in the host city during different periods by analyzing a large longitudinal data set over a period of 27 years.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and quantify the impact of geographically defined school zones on house prices in New Zealand.

This paper develops a series of hedonic pricing models to analyse 10,000 house sales transactions over a 21‐year period within a compact group of inner Auckland suburbs, which represents the epicentre of the school zoning debate in New Zealand. The study diverts from past research, which mainly focuses on school quality measures such as standardised test scores, and instead analyses the comprehensive price impacts of access to popular state schools. Its unique approach employs a geographic information system to divide the study area into effective school zones and then further subdivide into suburbs, thus offering a vital indicator of internal validity.

The study's findings indicate that the influence of school zoning on house prices is not uniform and the variation in price effects is largely a function of the uncertainty of future zone boundary definitions. Although some “in‐zone” suburbs have enjoyed accelerated house price growth following the reintroduction of zoning in 2000, peripheral suburbs’ price premiums have diminished.

In contrast to standard hedonic studies on school quality, this paper offers an innovative approach that integrates geography to solve what is essentially a spatial economic problem.

American suburbia changed drastically over the past century. Once home to wealthy white enclaves, suburbs opened to the masses after World War II through federal housing and infrastructure programs. A population shift from the American Rustbelt cities in the North and Midwest to the South and Southwest fueled the growth of new suburbs. The rise since the 1970s of global immigration from Central and South America as well as Asia helped diversify the country with the majority of this population relocating to suburbs rather than central cities. Located 20miles outside Atlanta, GA, Gwinnett County provides an opportunity to examine how these trends have manifested. Using this county as a case study, this chapter describes how Gwinnett has evolved over three periods of growth. From its founding in the 1820s to the 1960s, the area was dominated by small towns and an agricultural-based economy separated by elites and locals. The development of infrastructure led to the New Suburban phase from the 1970s to 1990s. A national migration of rustbelters coupled with regionals from the rural South made Gwinnett an upscale, white, upper middle class Republican area. As Gwinnett became one of the country's fasted growing counties, problems from urban sprawl appeared. In the third phase, Avoiding Slumburbia, Gwinnett wrestles with deteriorating older suburban corridors while adjusting to an influx of international migration. By 2009 Gwinnett became a majority minority county. This chapter looks at Gwinnett as a national example of a rapidly growing suburban area within a quickly expanding metropolitan area that is representative of current American suburbanization trends.

Wangjing is a large residential cluster located at the intersection of the Fourth Ring Road and the airport expressway in the northeast part of Beijing. The area is a “suburb” according to official statistics and academic accounts, which often classify urban areas beyond the historical old city as suburbs. Due to its proximity to the airport and major expressways, Wangjing has developed quickly since the late 1990s. As more high-rise luxury apartment buildings get built, the area's population has reached 150,000 as of 2010, including more than 30,000 foreign expatriates living here amid Chinese urban professionals. Across the airport expressway from Wangjing is the 798 Factory, a hip arts quarter developed within a former electronics factory built in the 1950s. Looking for large studio space, a few artists moved into the Bauhaus-style workshops here in the late 1990s, and quickly bookstores, coffee shops, and galleries followed suit. By 2005, the 798 Factory had become the center of the contemporary Chinese art scene and home to many prestigious international galleries. Outside the factory compound is a working-class neighborhood developed in the 1950s to house workers at the nearby factories and their families. The living conditions here have not changed much for decades, with some families still sharing common kitchens and bathrooms with their neighbors in dilapidated apartment buildings. To the west side of Wangjing, after about a 15-minute drive along the Fourth Ring Road, one reaches the Olympic Park, a brand-new area of parks, stadiums, five-star hotels, golf courses, and exclusive gated communities of villas – all developed in the short period before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Beyond the Fifth Ring Road, one can see many “urban villages,” former agricultural villages that have become populated by migrant workers with low-paid jobs – taxi drivers, construction workers, waiters, nannies, security guards, and street vendors. Unable to afford to live in the central city, migrant workers rent rooms from local peasants at the city's edge. Many of these villages are to be demolished soon to make space for commercial property development, and the migrant worker tenants will have to move to another village farther away from the city.