ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the basic conceptual model as well as the methodology and research design. It introduces people's model of residential change, current research and gaps in knowledge with regard to residential change in inner cities in East Central Europe are summarized, before the methodological challenges in analyzing residential change on different scales are considered. Residential change has been long studied by urban sociologists and geographers and refers to a key process of intra-urban change. Stories of residential change, first recounted by the Chicago School with its heuristic concepts of 'natural areas' or of invasion and succession, continue to be told in much of the neighbourhood life-cycle literature and in residential segregation and tipping-point approaches. The chapter focuses on economic resources, to address questions of affordability of housing and thereby the possibilities and limitations of accessing certain housing segments and urban neighbourhoods. Economic, social and cultural capital, residential preferences and perceptions, along with household changes, are determinants of residential behaviour.
