Research Design Connection: Gasoline Prices and Choices Made

Choosing a location for workplaces or deciding where to invest in housing? Then consider gasoline price futures. Chi and Boydstun report that their “study examines gasoline price changes and residential relocation choice using 1996–2008 American Housing Survey data. We found higher gasoline prices are associated with a higher percentage of movers choosing locations closer to workplaces.” As gas prices increase in the U.S., people choose to live closer to work.

Guangqing Chi and Jamie Boydstun. “Are Gasoline Prices a Factor in Residential Relocation Decisions? Preliminary Findings from the American Housing Survey.” Journal of Planning Education and Research, in press.

Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.