Influences on the Sense of Neighborhood

Abstract

A significant amount of research has been done in the United States and Western European countries regarding influences on the sense of neighborhood. However, it is less clear whether the influences discovered in the Western context also apply to Eastern European countries. Slovenia is a post-communist country which means that potentially different processes have been significant. In this article, the influence of individual and contextual factors on the sense of neighborhood in Slovenia is tested and compared. The analysis is made on the basis of a survey carried out in 2005 on a representative sample of Slovenian households. The findings are in some ways similar to those of the Western research. However, certain findings ran contrary to some of the cited research, like the absence of gender differences and the opposite influence of education and income. This might indicate different processes of establishing a sense of neighborhood in Central and Eastern Europe.