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Residents in a neighborhood view physical disorders as a potential incubator for negative incidents. Even though the disorders may not directly bring serious crime to the neighborhood, the poor physical conditions may affect residents in other ways, including increases in perceived physical disorder and fear of crime and decreases in neighborhood satisfaction. Focusing on the effects of physical disorder, this study examined the underlying associations between the actual upkeep, perceived upkeep, and neighborhood satisfaction using a structural equation model. The findings confirmed interrelationships be- tween factors; confirmed that as some categories of actual upkeep improved, perceived upkeep and neighborhood satisfaction improved; confirmed that as perceived upkeep improved, perceived safety from crime and neighborhood satisfaction improved; and confirmed that as perceived safety from crime improved, neighborhood satisfaction improved. The structural equation model showed that actual physical upkeep factors each had indirect effects on perceived upkeep, safety from crime, and neighborhood satisfaction.

The importance of the nearby natural environment was studied in the context of multiple-family housing. Residents at nine sites responded to a questionnaire about the kinds of natural areas near their home and the perceived adequacy of these facilities. While the nearby environment is often relegated to the category of "amenity," the findings suggest that the availability and adequacy of nearby natural elements is of far greater significance than such a characterization implies. Furthermore, different aspects of the natural environment need to be distinguished. Large open spaces, for example, played a minor role, at best, in residents' ratings of satisfaction with various aspects of the neighborhood. Opportunities to grow plants, by contrast, were significantly related to the sense of community. The most important factors in neighborhood satisfaction, however, were the availability of nearby trees, well-landscaped grounds, and places for taking walks. The data suggest that some of the psychological satisfactions traditionally associated with home ownership may be achieved even in the multiple-family housing context through the effective use of the natural environment.

The aim of this paper is to bring the concept of place identity into the context of intergroup relationships in urban place, using the social identity approach. A field study was conducted in four adjacent neighbourhoods in the city of Lisbon, in order to explore the influence of place identity on the perception of the participants’ own neighbourhood and its residents (in-group) and of the other neighbourhoods and their residents (out-groups). The results showed that place identity was highly correlated with neighbourhood satisfaction, relevant out-group differentiation, and favouritism to the in-group and depreciation of the relevant out-group. The results also enabled the identification of three types of possible relationships between the groups: a relevant out-group for comparison, an idealized reference group for approximation, and a devaluated group for avoidance. Moreover, in this study, we extend the predictions of SIA to the comprehension of specific distance estimation distortion patterns.

Fear of crime is one of the most important problems in our cities, even in low-crime rate areas. The aim of this paper is to provide evidence of the issues involved in the perceived risk of victimization and fear of crime in these contexts using the Structural Equation Model (SEM) technique. Five hundred and seventy- one people living in a working-class neighborhood of Barcelona answered a 45-item questionnaire including the following 7 constructs: perception of insecurity, previous threat experiences, social representations of insecurity, personal control and coping skills, potential aggressors, urban identity, and perceived environmental quality. Findings confirm the theoretical model, in which fear of crime is structurally related to: a) environmental features, b) personal variables, and c) social representation of unsafe places. In addition, we found that the role of social aspects is as important as that of environ- mental and psychological ones. Residential satisfaction and urban social identity appear as relevant variables.

Using surveys collected from 10 major metropolitan cities across the world, this article examines the factors that affect the extent to which people feel connected to others who live in their neighborhood and feel proud and satisfied with life in their cities. The cities included in the analysis are: New York, London, Paris, Stockholm, Toronto, Milan, Berlin, Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo. We find that certain aspects of the built environment, the conditions of the public sphere, and the extent of positive social networks in the city are critically important for understanding residents’ connections to each other and to their cities. Our findings provide insights for policy makers and planners concerned with making cities viable and livable.

The natural environment contributes to human wellbeing in a variety of ways, including providing outdoor recreation venues and underpinning cultural practices. Understanding whether the diversity of human-nature experiences significantly relate to overall subjective wellbeing, however, is rarely explored. Using results from 4418 respondents to an online survey conducted in Washington's Puget Sound region, we describe the relationship between overall life satisfaction and diverse metrics of how people engage with the natural environment. We found that eleven of the thirteen tested metrics had a small but positive correlation to overall life satisfaction and specific groupings of environment-specific social indicators were internally reliable constructs that predicted life satisfaction. These included: Sense of Place, Outdoor Activities, Good Governance, Social and Cultural Activities, Psychological Well- being, and Resource Access. This research empirically demonstrates that a variety of mechanisms for engaging the natural environment significantly contribute to overall subjective wellbeing.

Sense-of-place writings have proliferated in recent years, yet research suffers from a relative lack of construct clarity and hypothesis testing. This research presents a model of sense of place based in conventional social psychology: cognitions, attitudes, identities, and behavioral intentions located in and fundamen- tally about place. A survey of property owners in Vilas County, Wisconsin, revealed the importance of symbolic meanings as underpinning both place satisfaction, con- ceptualized as an attitude toward a setting, and attachment, conceptualized as per- sonal identification with a setting. In turn, attachment, satisfaction, and meanings all have independent effects on willingness to engage in behaviors that maintain or enhance valued attributes of the setting.

Research has identified several factors that affect fear of crime in public space. However, the extent to which gender moderates the effectiveness of fear-reducing measures has received little attention. Using data from the Chicago Transit Authority Customer Satisfaction Survey of 2003, this study aims to understand whether train transit security practices and service attributes affect men and women differently. Findings indicate that, while the presence of video cameras has a lower effect on women's feelings of safety compared with men, frequent and on-time service matters more to male passengers. Additionally, experience with safety-related problems affects women significantly more than men. Conclusions discuss the implications of the study for theory and gender-specific policies to improve perceptions of transit safety.

Gulf cities have witnessed rapid urban growth where new migrant communities from various cultural backgrounds have been evolving over the last two decades. This paper explores perceptions of liveable urban environments in Qatar’s capital city, Doha. An attitude survey of 280 migrant professionals from different cultural backgrounds engaged in the high service sector was conducted. A profile for each cultural group including westerners, middle easterners, Indians and Southeast Asians was developed to analyse the way in which the key liveability factors are perceived. Factors were classified into two overarching categories: urban life and urban spaces. Urban life category included aspects that pertain to traffic and movement experience, residential satisfaction, shopping experience, and satisfaction regarding leisure and service spaces. Urban space category included attractiveness, iconicity and familiarity, which were attitudinally explored in four public open spaces. The inquiry has uncovered a number of concerns related to traffic experience, housing quality, parking spaces, school facilities and shopping opportunities. This may stymie the city’s global attractiveness success on the global stage while warranting the need for addressing liveability as a part of future development plans.

In the 1970s, the Dutch city of Delft adopted a new residential street layout. Its fundamental concept was the antithesis of the notion of segregating pedestrians and vehicles. It emphasized integration of traffic and pedestrian activity as a positive principle for street planning. The shared street approach was later systematized by local agencies and given legal status by the national government. This new concept has drawn global attention, and similar street designs are appearing not only in Europe, but also in Japan, Australia, and Israel. The shared street concept's adaptability to different countries and societies reinforces its status as a valid, flexible choice for residential street layouts. Studies and surveys of shared streets in these countries have found considerable reductions in traffic accidents, increased social interaction and play, and a high degree of satisfaction by the residents. The available data and the successful implementation of the shared street in other countries can foster its acceptance in the United States. In particular, shared streets could be a workable alternative to the prevailing street layouts in new suburban subdivisions.

This paper reports on a pilot project to examine the concept of wellbeing as expressed locally by public reaction to the Peace Gardens refurbishment in the city centre of Sheffield completed in 1999. It was immediately popular with the public, but the aim was to find out what benefit people felt they derived from using the space. The study was conducted via a questionnaire delivered on site to pedestrian traffic over three weeks one summer. Over a thousand users of the space were asked one very simple question: How do the Peace Gardens make you feel? The authors’ interpretation of the responses indicates a very high level of approval. Users of the space reported high satisfaction across four themes: wellbeing, safety, community and respite. While these findings largely accord with the literature, further planned city-centre development threatens the success of the Peace Gardens. The paper considers whether the planning of such spaces is designed to empower users to meet others on their own terms, or whether planners recognize that social needs require to be more controlled in busy urban environments.

This article investigates the impact of the running environment on perceived satisfaction, restoration, and running participation based on a questionnaire distributed to 1,581 novice runners. The most frequently experienced impediments on running routes are poor lighting, unleashed dogs, and encounters with cyclists and cars. Regression analyses reveal that attractiveness and restorativeness are positively associated with the quality of the running surface and running in parks or outside towns and negatively by running on public roads in town, by running in larger cities (>250,000 inhabitants), and by other road users. However, attractiveness and restorativeness of running routes play only a minor role in the decision of how frequently to run. Practical considerations (proximity, threats) appear to have a larger impact on running frequency. Importantly, the most frequently mentioned impediments (poor lighting, cars, unleashed dogs) do not affect running frequency, whereas infrequent impediments (threats by other people) significantly affect running frequency.

Streets have become dangerous, unlivable environments, yet most people live on them. Streets need to be redefined as sanctuaries; as livable places; as communities; as resident territory; as places for play, greenery, and local history. Neighborhoods should be protected, though not to the point of being exclusionary. The neighborhood unit, the environmental area and the Woonerf are examined as models for the protected neighborhood. The criteria for a protected neighborhood depend on acceptable speeds, volumes, noise levels, reduction of accidents, and rights-of-way for pedestrians.

This paper assesses and synthesizes the cumulative results of a new “neighborhood-effects” literature that examines social processes related to problem behaviors and health-related outcomes. Our review identified over 40 relevant studies published in peer-reviewed journals from the mid-1990s to 2001, the take-off point for an increasing level of interest in neighborhood effects. Moving beyond traditional characteristics such as concentrated poverty, we evaluate the salience of social-interactional and institutional mechanisms hypothesized to account for neighborhood-level variations in a variety of phenomena (e.g., delinquency, violence, depression, high-risk behavior), especially among adolescents. We highlight neighborhood ties, social control, mutual trust, institutional resources, disorder, and routine activity patterns. We also discuss a set of thorny methodological problems that plague the study of neighborhood effects, with special attention to selection bias. We conclude with promising strategies and directions for future research, including experimental designs, taking spatial and temporal dynamics seriously, systematic observational approaches, and benchmark data on neighborhood social processes.

In recent years, a greater emphasis on user analysis and public participation in park planning has resulted in a greater scrutiny of the standards and guidelines used to establish and/or develop park areas within a community. The insensitivity of past "service area" approaches to meet the needs of neighborhood constituencies has created a demand to examine alternative approaches to defining neighborhood boundaries and the subsequent location of neighborhood parks. Two techniques that have been useful in accurately defining neighborhood boundaries and predicting use and nonuse of existing park facilities are examined.

We investigated the influence of neighborhood built form on sense of community in Perth, Western Australia. It was hypothesized that sense of community would be stronger in individuals living in pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. Multivariate linear regression models explored associations between walking and sense of community, with progressive adjustment for objective and perceived neighborhood characteristics. Sense of community was positively associated with walking for transport and positive perceptions of neighborhood quality, and negatively associated with residential density. The findings highlight the influence of local area perceptions on sense of community that appeared to be more important than objective environment characteristics. However, the latter may influence perceptions, and this requires investigation.

This article examines park use in relation to neighborhood social (safety and poverty) and urban form (pedestrian infrastructure and street network pattern) characteristics among youth and adult subpopulations defined by age and gender. We utilized System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) and Geographic Information Systems to objectively measure park use and park and neighborhood characteristics in 20 neighborhood parks. Heterogeneous negative binomial regression models indicated that the relationship between park use and types of activity settings, and park use and neighborhood attributes vary by age and gender. In general, the study found that park and activity setting size; activity settings such as playgrounds, basketball courts, pool and water features, shelters, and picnic areas; and availability of sidewalks and intersections in the park’s neighborhood were positively associated with park use, whereas crime, poverty, and racial heterogeneity of the surrounding neighborhood were negatively associated with park use.

This study examined what factors best predict residents’ concerns about neighborhood safety. One-hundred and twenty-two participants were selected from a large, Midwestern metropolitan area. All participants lived in high crime areas. Participants completed a 22-item questionnaire that assessed their perceptions of neighborhood safety and vigilance. These items were clustered as: 1) Community care and vigilance, 2) neighborhood safety concerns, 3) physical incivilities, and 4) social incivilities. Police crime data were also used in the analyses. Our findings suggest that aspects of the broken window theory, collective efficacy, and place attachments/territoriality play a role in affecting residents’ concerns about neighborhood safety.

While research on business improvement districts (BIDs) has considered the constraints BIDs can place on the negotiation of public space and citizenship, little work has focused on the process of establishing neighborhood BIDs (NBIDs), and few scholars have examined perceptions of public space held by actual neighborhood constituents. This article analyzes a participatory mapping project and messages on a neighborhood e-mail list to compare the visions of place expressed by disempowered community members and by an NBID proposal. Our analysis illuminates how local power relations and inequalities can become inscribed in urban planning projects like NBIDs.

This article examines the role of animals in the processes of social inclusion and exclusion in a gentrifying neighborhood. Residents who move into mixed-income, inner-city neighborhoods generally express a taste for diversity while simultaneously attempting to distance themselves from “undesirables.” Dogs allow newcomers to manage these tensions. The urge to control public spaces leads to the creation of new and quasi-exclusionary places, such as dog runs. At the same time, in the process of creating them, residents produce the neighborhood's image as a “diverse community.” Based on fieldwork conducted in a neighborhood of a large city in the northeastern United States, the author uses a wide range of discourse settings and genres to demonstrate that discursive production is part-and-parcel of the process of making places.