Neighborhood Integration Research Articles

Contributions of path-dependency and social capital drivers to housing tenure transitions in Britain

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the contributions of path-dependency and some contextual social capital drivers to housing tenure transitions in Britain. Different situations have continued to shape young adults’ housing tenure decisions. However, very little research has been done to investigate the impact of some social capital drivers, such as neighbourhood integration and strength of parental intimacy, on housing tenure decisions in Britain.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is carried out by tracking a sample of young adults in the British Household Panel Survey from 1991 to 2015 until they make tenure transition. Multinomial fixed-effects logistic regression of time to tenure transition was useful for the models, incorporating established economic and demographic drivers and with the inclusion of contextual social capital variables.FindingsThe inclusion of the number of years of parental home ownership experience tends to improve on previous path-dependency indicators of tenure transition. With additional years of parental home ownership experience, British young adults are more likely to remain or return to parental housing. Also, individuals that exchange better with their neighbours are less likely to switch tenure. On the other hand, regularity of contact with parents showed a positive relationship with home ownership or parental housing transitions.Originality/valueTo the best of the author’s knowledge, no study has explored the impact of the duration of socialisation in parental housing and also the impact of some other social capital drivers, such as neighbourhood integration and strength of parental intimacy, on housing tenure decisions among young adults. Hence, it is believed that the findings will further assist policymakers in understanding the dimensions and drivers of tenure shifts.

Urban Agriculture: Where Urban Pressures Meet City Farmers

As agrarian practices return to the urban space, a lack of understanding between the urban farmers and local city officials is stunting the development and economic sustainability of urban agriculture. Many promoters of urban agriculture fail to grasp the modern reality of operating a significant venture within a zoned municipal space. A failure to account for all potential stakeholders in the planning of these agricultural projects can cause unforeseen delays in execution and economic disaster. The needs of the agricultural installation must be balanced with the complexities of the city systems, and modern zoning procedures take multiple perspectives into account. There are numerous variables and considerations that must be evaluated in the creation of an urban farm that developers accustomed to working within the rural environment may not naturally include in their thinking. City planning and neighborhood integration must be addressed to ensure smooth geographic transition between the farming operation and further local real estate market development. The urban agricultural project developer will be required to demonstrate that the logistical needs of the enterprise can be accommodated within the existing infrastructure or be willing to upgrade the lacking requirement. Odor abatement and visual occlusion may be required. These complex elements of successfully installing an agricultural enterprise within an urban environment often frustrate successful project managers with agrarian backgrounds and cause them to pay minimal attention to the requirements of urban operation. Unfortunately, it can be clearly demonstrated that to do so is fraught with peril. Without thoughtful design, many urban agriculture efforts have slow growth, and the impact of these design failures on the progression of these enterprises is immense.

Habits of Whiteness: How Racial Domination Persists in Multiethnic Neighborhoods

As demographers and policy makers laud steps toward neighborhood integration, urban ethnographers remind us that diverse communities can perpetuate inequality if the dynamics that produce it are left unaddressed. This qualitative study focuses a cultural lens on social relationships in two stably diverse neighborhoods, mapping the connections between what the author terms “habits of whiteness” and dimensions of racial domination. One of the habits is anxiety, exhibited as an amplified sense of danger in multiethnic spaces, which results in greater social control due to a normative emphasis on social order, rules, and surveillance. A second is ambivalence, which manifests as the ability to simultaneously express appreciation for yet feel discomfort about multiethnic diversity, and it results in social distance as people limit their engagement with “others” and legitimize social and geographic boundaries as natural. This study thus contributes a detailed cultural understanding of the processes that reproduce racial hierarchy in stably multiethnic spaces.

Principles of racial integration vs. perceptions of non-White neighborhoods: Comparing hypothetical and real neighborhood choice

ABSTRACTUsing qualitative interview data, we examine the consistency of White residents’ responses to questions about their preferences for the racial composition of their neighborhoods when comparing hypothetical showcards and maps of real neighborhoods in respondents’ cities. This approach allows for an examination of how residents’ preferences for real neighborhoods align with preferences for idealized neighborhoods and the explanations people give when describing their preferences for neighborhoods of color. Data come from qualitative interviews conducted in Buffalo, New York, and Ogden, Utah.

Emergent leadership among tenants with psychiatric disabilities living in supported housing.

The overall aim of this study was to explore the experiences of people with psychiatric disabilities living as tenants in independent, supported apartments for the first time. Supported housing provides an alternative to structured, custodial housing models, such as foster homes, or board-and-care homes, for clients in public mental health systems. This article reports findings on how leadership emerged among tenants after making the transition from custodial to supported housing. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with tenants (n=24) and included questions on their housing history, current living situation, relationships with staff, participation, and understanding or experience of leadership. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, codes generated, and a thematic analysis conducted using a constructivist approach. The findings revealed an understanding and appreciation of leadership among tenants, who identified six pathways to leadership in their housing as a response to unmet tenant needs. Most tenant leaders emerged outside of formal authority or power structures. Supported housing provides a unique social setting and empowering community where the potential of persons with psychiatric disabilities to assume leadership may be realized and further developed. Mental health professionals working in community housing networks are well placed to harness these face-to-face tenant communities, and their natural leaders, as an additional tool in promoting tenant recovery, mutual help, neighbourhood integration, and the broader exercise of citizenship.

Estilos de vida e imaginarios urbanos en nuevos residentes de Lastarria y Bellas Artes: el barrio patrimonial como escenario de diversidad, distinción y movilidad

The process of transformation experienced during the last decade in the Lastarria neighborhood seems to illustrate how the new generations of residents in urban centers are creating an urban culture and urban lifestyles from new practices, representations and imaginaries about the neighborhoods and heritage. Through qualitative and quantitative techniques, we analyze the historical evolution and present context of this process to better understand the imaginaries that the new residents create in relation to the heritage neighborhood. As a result, we identified that new residents do not share a common representation about heritage and neighborhood, but rather a tension between three imaginaries: The neighborhood as an island of diversity, the neighborhood as a scene of distinction and the imaginary of neighborhood mobility. Finally, we discuss the possibilities and limitations of this lifestyle construction in heritage neighborhoods for the construction of a more diverse urban culture, considering alternatives to the restricted present integration of neighborhoods through the homogenization of consumption.

Hate Thy Neighbor: Lessons for Neighborhood Integration for the Post-Obama Era and Beyond

This essay explores contemporary racial harassment, hate crimes, and violence targeted at African Americans and other racial minorities who have moved to white neighborhoods in the 1990s and 2000s, as described in my book Hate Thy Neighbor: Move In Violence and the Persistence of Segregation in American Housing. The essay details the experiences of blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans who face race-based hate crimes upon integrating white neighborhoods. This violence is not limited to a specific geographic area of the United States, and is an important factor in continuing patterns of racial segregation. Social segregation and the failure of existing law to address this violence are important factors in its survival. Analyzing the roots and causes of such violence, the essay calls for greater attention to the enforcement of legal remedies designed to address neighborhood hate crime.

Transit-oriented development in future cities: towards a two-level sustainable mobility strategy

ABSTRACTIn this paper, a two-level sustainable mobility strategy for future cities is suggested and the potential key role of transit-oriented development (TOD) is discussed with reference to both the internal and external movements of people. In particular, a people-oriented and place-based approach is advocated. Governments should endeavour to move beyond simply pledging to reduce carbon emission to a specific level by a certain year but to adopt a life cycle approach in guiding the planning and development of future cities. There may need to be a shift in the system with a different balance of transport modes. Moreover, the correct type and mix of transport modes need to be provided with respect to where people and their activities are. Moreover, it is necessary to explicitly recognize the value of travel for both economic and non-economic purposes. Building upon the existing literature, this paper proposes three new directions for planning TODs in future cities. Firstly, the built environment should be understood at both the neighbourhood and city scales. Secondly, the success of TODs needs to be judged not just by the public transit patronage but also by the share of walking and other urban planning and design features like greenery and vibrancy. Thirdly, it is neither possible nor desirable to have uniformly high density, diversity and same design in every TOD neighbourhood. Using Hong Kong as an example, five major types of TOD neighbourhoods are identified. For intercity movements, integrated transport with seamless intermodal transfers and station–neighbourhood integration should be developed in future cities. More research should be done on quantifying and fostering the co-benefits associated with TOD.

From “Different” to “Similar”

Assimilation is theorized as a multi-stage process where the structural mobility of immigrants and their descendants ultimately leads to established and immigrant-origin populations developing a subjective sense of social similarity with one another, an outcome I term symbolic belonging. Yet existing work offers little systematic evidence as to whether and how immigrants’ gains—in terms of language ability, socioeconomic status, neighborhood integration, or intermarriage—cause changes in the perceptions of the native-born U.S. population. I use a nationally representative conjoint survey experiment to explore whether and how immigrants’ mobility gains shape native-born white citizens’ perceptions of symbolic belonging. I find that white natives are generally open to structural relationships with immigrant-origin individuals (e.g., friends and neighbors), with the exception of black immigrants and natives, and undocumented immigrants. Yet, white Americans simultaneously view all non-white people, regardless of legal status, as dissimilar and far from achieving symbolic belonging in U.S. society. The results offer optimism about the potential structural mobility of legal immigrants and their descendants, yet simultaneously suggest that explicitly racialized lines of division remain just below the surface.

Bend it like Beckham: Ethnic identity and integration

We propose a theoretical framework to study the determinants of ethnic and religious identity along two distinct motivational processes: cultural distinction and cultural conformity. Under cultural conformity, ethnic identity is reduced by neighborhood integration, which weakens group loyalties and prejudices. On the contrary, under cultural distinction, ethnic minorities are more motivated in retaining their own distinctive cultural heritage the more integrated are the neighborhoods where they reside and work. Using data on ethnic preferences and attitudes provided by the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities in the UK we find evidence that might be consistent with intense ethnic and religious identity mostly formed as a cultural distinction mechanism. Consistently, we document that ethnic identities might be more intense in mixed than in segregated neighborhoods.

MULTIETHNIC NEIGHBORHOODS ON THE GROUND

AbstractAs our nation and our neighborhoods increasingly diversify, we should understand how to sustain integrated communities that are equally beneficial for all residents. Though our policies encourage diversity as a theoretical social good, we actually know little about what happens on the ground in multiethnic neighborhoods. We conduct a comparative case study of the only two Boston neighborhoods to have maintained at least 10% representation of four racial and ethnic groups over the past two decades. Using survey data and ethnographic field observations, we examine residents’ experiences in these two consistently multiethnic, yet very different, neighborhoods. We find that neighborhood socioeconomic and racial inequality and disadvantage matter for residents’ access to neighborhood resources and constraints, and their perceptions of sense of community. Notably, in the highly unequal South End, Whites and homeowners have greater access to amenities and have higher perceptions of sense of community in comparison to racial and ethnic minorities and renters. Socioeconomic disadvantage matters in Fields Corner, as evidenced by lower overall perceptions of sense of community and greater exposure to safety concerns among all groups in this neighborhood compared to residents of the South End. In the end, we argue that having multiple groups simply sharing neighborhood space over a stable period is not enough to overcome the social problems associated with residential segregation and isolation. In order to support equitable neighborhood integration amid the changing face of diversity, we should take cues from “diverse by direction” neighborhood models that include active organization and coalition building among dissimilar racial and ethnic groups.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF INDIVIDUAL- AND COMMUNITY-LEVEL SOCIOCULTURAL AND NEIGHBORHOOD FACTORS TO THE MENTAL HEALTH OF ETHNIC GROUPS IN TWO LARGE U.S. CITIES

Using multilevel modeling, the present study examines psychological well-being as a function of sociocultural factors, neighborhood disadvantage, neighborhood fragmentation, and neighborhood integration, along with individual factors among a sample of 1,306 African and Latino/a Americans living in New York City and Chicago neighborhoods. Neighborhood blocks were prestratified based on racial/ethnic and economic characteristics and then randomly selected within predefined strata, resulting in a total of 140 block (neighborhood) groups. A means-as-outcome and slopes-as-outcome model was fit to the data. Intraclass correlation coefficients for psychological well-being for the fully unconditional model revealed that 15% of the variance in psychological well-being is between neighborhoods. Results from subsequent model building revealed differences in mean levels of psychological well-being as well as heterogeneity between neighborhoods through varying predictor effects on psychological well-being (i.e., certain predictor effects varied across neighborhoods). Sociocultural variables such as cultural identity, religious/spiritual coping, and family obligation were significantly associated with psychological well-being, generally beneficial, and sometimes varying with generation status and across neighborhoods. Different dimensions of neighborhood disadvantage and fragmentation emerged as important factors, although neighborhood integration did not. Our final models explained a substantial proportion of the variance in psychological well-being within and between neighborhoods. They also revealed the contextual and conditional nature of sociocultural factors.

Both Personal and Public: Measuring Interethnic Marriage Attitudes

In this article, we examine a new survey measure called the “grid item” that we designed to assess personal willingness to engage in interethnic marriage, rather than approval of intergroup relations for an abstract other, while also mitigating social desirability pressures to respond in favor of intermarriage. Using three waves of 2006–2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) data (Ns range from 727 to 2,731 over waves and across survey items), we compare results from the grid item to those of several other common survey techniques. Our findings suggest that responses to the grid item, which separates personal from general willingness to intermarry, are less influenced by social desirability bias than the traditional survey item. In 2007, for example, 75% of Whites approved of Black‐White intermarriage when asked using a traditional question, while only 49% of White males and 39% of White females expressed willingness to marry a Black person when asked with the grid item in 2008. We also show how approval of intermarriage for a generalized “other” is significantly greater than personal willingness to consider an interracial relationship, particularly among White women. We conclude that research on attitudes toward and engagement in interethnic marriage must distinguish personal from generalized attitudes. Measuring these types of attitudes accurately is important for guiding and assessing social policy on racial integration in schools, neighborhoods, and workplaces.

How Neighborhood Poverty Structures Types and Levels of Social Integration.

Social integration is fundamental to health and well-being. However, few studies have explored how neighborhood contexts pattern types and levels of social integration that individuals experience. We examined how neighborhood poverty structures two dimensions of social integration: integration with neighbors and social integration more generally. Using data from the United States Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, we linked study participants to percent poverty in their neighborhood of residence (N=16,040). Social integration was assessed using a modified Social Network Index and neighborhood integration based on yearly visits with neighbors. We fit multivariate logistic regression models that accounted for the complex survey design. Living in high poverty neighborhoods was associated with lower social integration but higher visits with neighbors. Neighborhood poverty distinctly patterns social integration, demonstrating that contexts shape the extent and quality of social relationships.

Neighborhood Integration and Connectivity Predict Cognitive Performance and Decline.

Objective: Neighborhood characteristics may be important for promoting walking, but little research has focused on older adults, especially those with cognitive impairment. We evaluated the role of neighborhood characteristics on cognitive function and decline over a 2-year period adjusting for measures of walking. Method: In a study of 64 older adults with and without mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD), we evaluated neighborhood integration and connectivity using geographical information systems data and space syntax analysis. In multiple regression analyses, we used these characteristics to predict 2-year declines in factor analytically derived cognitive scores (attention, verbal memory, mental status) adjusting for age, sex, education, and self-reported walking. Results: Neighborhood integration and connectivity predicted cognitive performance at baseline, and changes in cognitive performance over 2 years. The relationships between neighborhood characteristics and cognitive performance were not fully explained by self-reported walking. Discussion: Clearer definitions of specific neighborhood characteristics associated with walkability are needed to better understand the mechanisms by which neighborhoods may impact cognitive outcomes. These results have implications for measuring neighborhood characteristics, design and maintenance of living spaces, and interventions to increase walking among older adults. We offer suggestions for future research measuring neighborhood characteristics and cognitive function.

Mixed-Income Housing and Neighborhood Integration: Evidence from Inclusionary Zoning Programs

ABSTRACT:Using propensity score matching and regression techniques, together with an original database of approximately 12,000 inclusionary zoning (IZ) units built in Montgomery County, Maryland and Suffolk County, New York, this article comparatively analyzes the effect of IZ programs on racial and income integration and neighborhood change at the census tract level between 1980 and 2000. In particular, the article explores the question of whether IZ programs encourage stable neighborhood integration over time. This analysis fills a gap in the current empirical literature on the effect of IZ programs on neighborhood change and integration, an original policy goal that has not been evaluated previously due to data limitations. The findings indicate that the effect of IZ units on neighborhood racial and income transition is dependent on the siting of IZ units, the initial characteristics of the neighborhoods in which they are built, and the institutional framework of the IZ program. In the aggregate, IZ units positively affect the level of both racial and income integration in neighborhoods where units are built, although stark differences emerge between the two study areas. The findings do reveal the potential for IZ programs to exacerbate existing concentrations of poverty and patterns of residential racial segregation.

The impact of urban pattern on claiming ‘place’: case studies from Istanbul

The main hypothesis of this study is that, along with other influences, urban pattern (spatial configuration of neighbourhoods) plays a role in claiming the ‘place’ (developing environmental protective behaviour). In this context, three settlements in Istanbul, Turkey, are examined and compared, and the relationship between spatial configuration of the neighbourhoods and emergence of a neighbourhood initiative against a possible environmental threat is investigated. The effective protests demonstrated by residents in two of the selected settlements, against construction of a third bridge in the first case and against the construction activity in the last green space of the neighbourhood in the second case was the reason why these particular case studies were selected. The residents of the third settlement, although exposed to the same environmental damage with the first settlement, did not openly oppose the proposed interventions. This was therefore selected as a comparison case. In the investigation, using Space Syntax as a method to evaluate the social logic of space, findings from the case studies reveal similarities in the spatial patterns of two of the settlements, in that they form a neighbourhood integration core that has the potential to support human co-presence and social encounter, and therefore act as a foundation on which to establish NGO activity which might be referred to as environmentally protective behaviour. The differences in the third analysed settlement, which has the same socio demographic and natural factors but in which environmental protests were not seen, reveals the impact of the urban pattern. Therefore, the article presents data on the potential impact of urban pattern, in terms of organisation of its open spaces, on raising environmental protective behaviour of its residents.

Linguistic and Neighbourhood Integration among Highly-skilled Migrants – A Quantitative Analysis Using the Example of Foreign University Staff Members in Aachen, Bonn and Cologne

Integration issues among highly-skilled migrants were long considered rather irrelevant, a view being based on the image of a transnational, highly mobile elite that easily gets along at different workplaces during their respective duration of stay. Recent studies, however, indicate the heterogeneity of the group, for example with regard to vocational situation as well as migration trajectories. Accordingly, questions about their integration in the respective host society gain importance. Therefore, this article deals with integration processes of highly-skilled migrants in Germany. Based on a standardised survey (n=553) of foreign academics at the universities in Aachen, Bonn and Cologne, we examine aspects of the cultural and social dimension of integration processes in this group. In order to operationalise cultural integration, we chose linguistic competence indicators and social integration is operationalised using variables related to neighbourhood relationships. The study was primarily conducted using a cluster analysis.With regard to their linguistic skills, the respondents can be divided into five clusters. The members of the first two clusters assess their language proficiency as above the mean, while the members of the last two clusters assess their language skills as distinctly lower than average. With regard to neighbourhood relationships, we identified six clusters that again differ in the assessment of their neighbourhood contacts. However, no linear-hierarchical composition is apparent in the neighbourhood integration clusters as was for the linguistic clusters. Furthermore, we examined the reciprocal effects between linguistic competence and neighbourhood relationships and the influences of selected predictor variables on these two dimensions. There is a highly significant correlation between linguistic competence and the neighbourhood situation. The correlation between linguistic competence and neighbourhood situation and a series of predictor variables such as nationality, academic discipline, family and household structures and duration of stay is also highly significant. We can also assume that some of these correlations, such as the latter, are reciprocal.

Neighbourhood integration in european multi-ethnic cities. Evidence from the Geitonies project

This special issue of Finisterra is based on the findings of the GEITONIES project, and intends to shed some light on questions relating to ethnic diversity, social relations and participation in urban settings. The research was conducted in 6 European cities: Lisbon, Bilbao, Thessaloniki Rotterdam, Vienna and Warsaw and the neighbourhood context was adopted as the field of research. A random survey was implemented to 3600 residents in 18 neighbourhoods in the six cities. The papers included in this special issue of Finisterra – Revista Portuguesa de Geografia, focus on processes of change and social relations at the neighbourhood level and stress the role of place and time in the development of positive inter-group contacts, representations and integration.

Ageism and Social Integration of Older Adults in Their Neighborhoods in Israel

The article aims to examine the extent to which ageism is connected with the social integration of older adults in their neighborhoods and to identify factors that explain social integration. A convenience sample that included 300 older adults aged 65 and older and 300 younger people under the age of 65 who resided in 3 neighborhoods in Tel-Aviv with varied socioeconomic status were interviewed. Kogan's Attitudes toward Old People scale was used to probe ageism. Social integration index included 3 dimensions: frequency of participation in activities in the neighborhood, familiarity with neighbors, and sense of neighborhood. Hierarchical regression analyses examined 3 groups of independent variables: older adults' sociodemographic characteristics, their perceived health and outdoor mobility, and neighborhoods' characteristics including level of ageism. Neighborhoods varied by levels of ageism and social integration. Higher level of social integration of older neighborhoods' residents was explained by a combination of factors: younger age, better self-rated health, and fewer limitations of outdoor mobility, lower levels of ageism reported by a sample of younger respondents, and higher socioeconomic status of the neighborhood. To enable better social integration, intergeneration programs should be developed to decrease ageism, and in order to make communities more age-friendly, there is need to facilitate accessibility to services and public spaces.