An important aspect of urban policy and planning is identifying gaps between what residents want and what the market has provided. For example, in a particular region, how well do the existing amenities associated with various housing types, neighborhoods, and associated transportation infrastructure align with the preferences of residents? Are there particular amenities, for example the availability of access to transit or recreational open space, that people say they want, but seem to be more willing to compromise in order to obtain other amenities, such as quality of schools or abundant parking?

In this study, we will use data from a 2012 Utah statewide revealed and stated preference residential location survey of 2,795 respondents. We will map the perceptual differences between what residents say they want and what they have in terms of housing attributes and area amenities. The first part of the survey asked respondents a large set of questions describing various aspects of their current home and its location attributes, including dwelling type; housing costs; perceptions of various neighborhood characteristics like privacy and walkability; distance to work and school and other amenities such as stores, restaurants, places of worship, and recreation; and distance to transit stops. In the second part of the survey, respondents described their "ideal" home location through a parallel set of questions, including both attitudinal and stated choice questions.

Using non-metric multi-dimensional scaling, we will create perceptual maps of the distances between residents' current housing attributes and area amenities and their "ideal points" as expressed in stated preference questions. By measuring the perceptual distances between current and ideal attribute levels and segmenting by place type, we can identify visually which attributes residents have sought to satisfy first and how this varies across these segments. A particular interesting aspect of this work will be comparing differences between residents' preferences and the extent to which such combinations of housing, neighborhood, transportation and related amenity attributes exist in their region.