Urbanization in Kazakhstan : Desirable Cities, Unaffordable Housing, and the Missing Rental Market

Kazakhstan’s cities are hubs of economic opportunity and prosperity. But despite the Government’s ambitious targets, the pace of urbanization remains slow. This study focuses on two key constraints: (i) the very high cost-of-living in Kazakhstan’s cities, and (ii) the near absence of a rental housin...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Seitz, William
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Taylor and Francis 2021
Subjects:	URBANIZATION URBAN HOUSING DOMESTIC MOBILITY
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35756

id	okr-10986-35756
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-357562021-07-20T18:50:48Z Urbanization in Kazakhstan : Desirable Cities, Unaffordable Housing, and the Missing Rental Market Seitz, William URBANIZATION URBAN HOUSING DOMESTIC MOBILITY Kazakhstan’s cities are hubs of economic opportunity and prosperity. But despite the Government’s ambitious targets, the pace of urbanization remains slow. This study focuses on two key constraints: (i) the very high cost-of-living in Kazakhstan’s cities, and (ii) the near absence of a rental housing market outside of the capital, Nur-Sultan. The findings show that the two urban centers of Almaty and Nur-Sultan are 190 and 240 percent more expensive to live in than the national average. Housing is the primary driver of the disparity: after adjusting for inflation, housing costs tripled in Nur-Sultan and quadrupled in Almaty between 2001 and 2015. As a result, housing costs for the local population in these areas are more unaffordable than famously exclusive cities such as San Francisco and Vancouver. Demand elasticities imply that rural and low-income households are especially unlikely to relocate to high-priced areas where employment prospects are better and average incomes are higher. Regional convergence in wage rates remains slow but appears to be proceeding most quickly in Nur-Sultan, where rental housing is most prevalent. The findings suggest that high rates of home ownership and the high cost-of-living in cities leads to exclusion of lower-income households and restrains economic growth. 2021-06-15T16:45:09Z 2021-06-15T16:45:09Z 2020-01-03 Journal Article International Journal of Urban Sciences 1226-5934 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35756 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Taylor and Francis Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research Europe and Central Asia Kazakhstan
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	URBANIZATION URBAN HOUSING DOMESTIC MOBILITY
spellingShingle	URBANIZATION URBAN HOUSING DOMESTIC MOBILITY Seitz, William Urbanization in Kazakhstan : Desirable Cities, Unaffordable Housing, and the Missing Rental Market
geographic_facet	Europe and Central Asia Kazakhstan
description	Kazakhstan’s cities are hubs of economic opportunity and prosperity. But despite the Government’s ambitious targets, the pace of urbanization remains slow. This study focuses on two key constraints: (i) the very high cost-of-living in Kazakhstan’s cities, and (ii) the near absence of a rental housing market outside of the capital, Nur-Sultan. The findings show that the two urban centers of Almaty and Nur-Sultan are 190 and 240 percent more expensive to live in than the national average. Housing is the primary driver of the disparity: after adjusting for inflation, housing costs tripled in Nur-Sultan and quadrupled in Almaty between 2001 and 2015. As a result, housing costs for the local population in these areas are more unaffordable than famously exclusive cities such as San Francisco and Vancouver. Demand elasticities imply that rural and low-income households are especially unlikely to relocate to high-priced areas where employment prospects are better and average incomes are higher. Regional convergence in wage rates remains slow but appears to be proceeding most quickly in Nur-Sultan, where rental housing is most prevalent. The findings suggest that high rates of home ownership and the high cost-of-living in cities leads to exclusion of lower-income households and restrains economic growth.
format	Journal Article
author	Seitz, William
author_facet	Seitz, William
author_sort	Seitz, William
title	Urbanization in Kazakhstan : Desirable Cities, Unaffordable Housing, and the Missing Rental Market
title_short	Urbanization in Kazakhstan : Desirable Cities, Unaffordable Housing, and the Missing Rental Market
title_full	Urbanization in Kazakhstan : Desirable Cities, Unaffordable Housing, and the Missing Rental Market
title_fullStr	Urbanization in Kazakhstan : Desirable Cities, Unaffordable Housing, and the Missing Rental Market
title_full_unstemmed	Urbanization in Kazakhstan : Desirable Cities, Unaffordable Housing, and the Missing Rental Market
title_sort	urbanization in kazakhstan : desirable cities, unaffordable housing, and the missing rental market
publisher	Taylor and Francis
publishDate	2021
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35756
_version_	1764483711812763648

Urbanization in Kazakhstan : Desirable Cities, Unaffordable Housing, and the Missing Rental Market

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