Does spatial configuration matter in residents’ conflicts in public housing complexes? Evidence from mixed tenure housings in South Korea

This paper suggests policy implications for the mitigation of resident conflict in public rental apartment complexes in South Korea. Employing a nation-wide disaggregate dataset from the 2011 Korea Housing Survey for Public Housing Residents, we developed a probability model of the occurrence of conflicts among the residents in mixed-tenure public housings. The results showed that spatial configuration of dwelling units between rental and privately owned units, management system, and resident’s organization played important roles in the occurrence of resident’s conflict. The degree of spatial integration showed a significant relationship to the occurrence of residents’ conflicts in that two types of mixing (i.e., segregated and segmented) were positively associated with the increase in conflicts among residents, whereas the other two types (i.e., “line-mix” and “random-mix”) with higher levels of spatial integration had a negative association with it. Although both “line-mix” and “random-mix” can be considered as a type of spatial configuration with higher level of spatial integration, it was found that only “random-mix” was statistically significant. It is suggested that “a pepper-potted strategy” needs to be implemented to mitigate residents’ conflicts in mixed-tenure public housing developments in South Korea.