Vacancy Chain Analysis
Vacancy chain analysis is a system model of mobility, introduced by Harrison White in his 1970 book Chains of Opportunity, that follows opportunities rather than people. When a unit such as a house or a job is freed and filled by someone who in turn vacates another unit, a chain of moves cascades through the system until it ends with a new entrant or a unit leaving the stock. By treating vacancies as the things that move — through an absorbing Markov chain — the framework explains how a single new dwelling or retirement can ripple into many household relocations or promotions.
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Sources
- White, H. C. (1970). Chains of Opportunity: System Models of Mobility in Organizations. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. ISBN: 9780674080652
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Vacancy Chain Analysis (White's Chains of Opportunity). ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/human-geography/vacancy-chain-analysis
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
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- Markov Land-Use ModelHuman Geography↔ compare
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