Staying in place: narratives of middle-income renter immobility in New York City

Existing research has enumerated why people move; this article responds to recent calls for increased focus on residential immobility – or staying in place – by focusing on why and how middle-income renters remain immobile as housing costs change around them. This article examines how middle-income renters make sense of housing cost change and their ability to remain in place. Using thirty-two semi-structured interviews with middle-income renters in New York City, this research analyses housing narratives to understand the financial and social complexities of remaining in place. Middle-income renters who are intentionally immobile explain how they stay in their neighbourhood area by making financial trade-offs and negotiating landlord relationships to avoid rent increases. Within a broader narrative of inevitable price displacement, this demonstrates how structural processes of urban housing and urban change manifest in the housing narratives of middle-income renters as they act to defer their own displacement and actively hold their place in changing neighbourhoods.