Spatial analysis of the urban-to-rural migration determinants in the viennese metropolitan area. A transition from suburbia to postsuburbia?

Currently urban spatial structures are affected by pervasive developments, which provoke a diversity and reorganization of population. This article examines the driving forces that cause urban-to-rural migration of population in the Austrian metropolitan area of Vienna using exploratory spatial analysis methods over the time period from 2001 to 2006. To model the qualitative changes between sub- and postsuburban processes, fuzzy sets are applied as variables. Because of significant concentration of high urban-to-rural migration along the main transportation corridors, a geographically weighted regression approach is used to determine whether suburban or postsuburban determinants are essential to predict urban-to-rural migration. The results show that the spatial variation of urban-to-rural migration can be statistically best modeled by using the two covariates "good accessibility to the core city by motorized individual transport" and a "high land price index". The article argues that this represents the prominence of classical hard location factors, which are interpreted as typical suburban. Accordingly, the metropolitan area is-concerning urban-to-rural migration-still under the influence of suburban processes. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.