Neighborhood Perspective Research Articles

Quality of Life of Non-Self-Sufficient Immigrants: A Neighborhood Perspective

This paper explores the quality of life of non-self-sufficient immigrants in Sweden, focusing on their residential patterns while controlling for individual characteristics. We find large differences in both individual and locational attributes across income levels and ethnic backgrounds, illustrating that the status of ‘immigrant’ is far from being a homogenous group. The results show that non-self-sufficient individuals, especially those from Africa and the Middle East, may face limitations in their life satisfaction as these groups are most likely to reside in socioeconomically weak neighborhoods. Additionally, the results show that the motivation for residential choices varies across ethnic backgrounds. For example, ethnicity rather than income level determines the neighborhood patterns of African immigrants, while non-self-sufficiency is the major determinant for Nordic immigrants residing in poor, ethnic neighborhoods. We thus argue that the location of residence and differences across ethnic backgrounds deserve more attention in research and policy discussions on quality-of-life issues.

Challenges to Democracy in a Shifting Global Landscape: India?s Neighborhood Perspective

Challenges to Democracy in a Shifting Global Landscape: India?s Neighborhood Perspective

Do similar social groups have similar mobility in a city? Social areas and mobility in Shenzhen, China

Social area analysis has been applied to analyze how urban space is spatially arranged. Related studies have divided urban residents into different groups whose socioeconomic status are similar. However, few studies have attempted to explore the mobility of these social groups, especially for developing countries where census data with travel information are not readily available. This study explores whether people in the same social area have similar work mobility and whether location matters from an aggregated neighborhood perspective. A case study is conducted in Shenzhen, China with fine-grained census and mobile phone data. The neighborhood committee based census and cell tower based mobile phone data are integrated into 500 m grid for analysis. Results show that different social areas have significantly different work mobility, and the within-group heterogeneity is also prominent. Three location factors are examined and it is found that there exist variations in the influence of spatial factors on work mobility for different social areas. Findings of this study will supplement current knowledge about social areas, location and mobility in urban China at the mesoscale. In addition, the methodology provides a feasible framework of integrating city-scale socioeconomic information and mobility data from different sources for future urban studies.

Testing Gene-Gene Interactions Based on a Neighborhood Perspective in Genome-wide Association Studies.

Unexplained genetic variation that causes complex diseases is often induced by gene-gene interactions (GGIs). Gene-based methods are one of the current statistical methodologies for discovering GGIs in case-control genome-wide association studies that are not only powerful statistically, but also interpretable biologically. However, most approaches include assumptions about the form of GGIs, which results in poor statistical performance. As a result, we propose gene-based testing based on the maximal neighborhood coefficient (MNC) called gene-based gene-gene interaction through a maximal neighborhood coefficient (GBMNC). MNC is a metric for capturing a wide range of relationships between two random vectors with arbitrary, but not necessarily equal, dimensions. We established a statistic that leverages the difference in MNC in case and in control samples as an indication of the existence of GGIs, based on the assumption that the joint distribution of two genes in cases and controls should not be substantially different if there is no interaction between them. We then used a permutation-based statistical test to evaluate this statistic and calculate a statistical p-value to represent the significance of the interaction. Experimental results using both simulation and real data showed that our approach outperformed earlier methods for detecting GGIs.

Study on the spatial heterogeneity of urban heat islands and influencing factors

Conflicts between urban expansion and urban heat islands (UHIs) are increasing markedly, because of accelerated urbanization, and it is urgent to mitigate the UHI effect. In this study, we explored the spatial heterogeneity of UHIs from a neighborhood perspective via inversion of land surface temperature (LST) based on Landsat-8 remote sensing image data and using local Moran's I; the central urban area of Jinan City was selected as the study area. Furthermore, by constructing a system of urban spatial structure indicators and adopting methods such as correlation coefficient analysis and spatial econometric modeling, the factors influencing UHI were further revealed. The results showed that (1) There was spatial heterogeneity of the UHI in the central urban area of Jinan. The High-High cluster was mainly distributed in the north of the central urban area of Jinan; the Low-Low cluster was primarily distributed in the south of the central urban area of Jinan and the waters. Agglomeration distribution approximately coincided with heat island distribution. (2) The correlations between urban spatial structure indicators and LST in different dimensions were generally high and varied significantly. The two-dimensional and three-dimensional indicators all showed a highly significant positive relationship with LST. The mean and standard deviation of the DEM and absolute building height in the one-dimensional indicators were both negatively and significantly correlated with LST. (3) Building height standard deviation had a significantly positive spillover effect on the LST of the neighboring areas; this spillover effect was greater than the direct effect on these regions.

Spatial clustering of adult cancer prevalence in the United States

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Understanding the geographic distribution of cancer prevalence at neighborhood level may help guide cancer control and prevention measures from the perspective of neighborhoods, as opposed to individuals. We examined the spatial heterogeneity of cancer prevalence across census tracts in the contiguous United States. METHODS: We previously identified predictors of census tract-level cancer prevalence by applying Bayesian additive regression trees to a combined database of tract-level population health, environmental exposure, and socioeconomic data from multiple sources. In this study, we examined the association between the selected predictors (percentage of adults 65 years old or over, prevalence of routine checkup, percentage of non-Hispanic white, percentage of housing built before 1960, and percentage of individuals below poverty) and cancer prevalence using a linear regression model. Spatial clustering were identified based on weighted normal scan statistics (SatScan V9.7) using the tract-level cancer prevalence and the regression residuals, respectively, with the population for aged≥65 years as the weight. RESULTS:The mean cancer prevalence was 6.7% (standard deviation 1.8%). Using cancer prevalence, we identified 4 circular-shaped high-risk clusters in Florida (Latitude Longitude and radius: 27.817765 N 81.396327 W, 216km), Arizona (33.631195 N 112.350663 W, 9km), New Jersey (39.958259 N 74.345696 W, 11km), and a region encompassing parts of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York (43.268491 N 78.823785 W, 468km). Their estimated cancer prevalence was 8.1%, 10.1%, 13.8%, and 7.3%, respectively. Using residuals, we identified one dominant high-risk region covering parts of Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa (47.723678 N 104.100726 W, 1834km), and four smaller clusters (radius 20km) in Florida and Maryland. CONCLUSIONS:Variations in high-risk clustering patterns based on prevalence and residual values suggest that the identified five predictors can explain much of the initial variation in tract-level cancer prevalence. However, the high-risk regions based on residuals require further investigation. KEYWORDS: Cancer prevalence, United States, Geospatial analysis, Cancer high-risk clusters

Association mining method based on neighborhood perspective

Important tasks in big data association mining are identification of potentially complex associations among massive variables and determination of the strength of different forms of associations. However, uncertain data distributions and diverse associations make it difficult to ensure the applicability and accuracy of measures based on distribution assumptions and data-driven non-parametric measurement methods. Therefore, an effective association measure that is unbiased relative to relationship types is urgently needed. In this article, starting from the fair ordering requirement of potential relationships in big data, we review the current axiomatic conditions of association metrics, provide some possible properties that association measures in big data should satisfy, discuss some limitations of two types of association methods based on neighborhood perspective, and propose a new association measure based on $k$-NN granule, which we refer to as maximum neighborhood coefficient. Experiments using artificial and real datasets verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method from different perspectives. Finally, we identify interesting phenomena in the experiment and theoretical issues to be solved that we hope will motivate deeper thinking and research in this field.

Light rail development with or without gentrification?: Neighborhood perspectives on changing sense of place in Denver, Colorado

The growing and continued popularity of light rail transit systems in major United States metropolitan areas is leading to growing research on land use impacts, value generation, and contributions to gentrification. While various studies explore the fiscal and environmental influences of light rail transit development in the Denver Metropolitan Area, only recently have scholars turned their attention to gentrification and social influences. This paper analyzes how one station shapes residents' sense of place, providing more nuanced understandings of the role light rail and transit-oriented development affects perceptions of neighborhood character and place attachment. We argue that gentrification can be measured and understood not only quantitatively, but also by how people feel light rail influences their attachment to place. Residents within half a mile of the Evans Light Rail Station were randomly and anonymously surveyed with a series of demographic questions and asked to provide their experiences, observations, and opinions. With 166 household responses, we examine residents' perceptions of Evans Station and sense of place to investigate relationships between factors such as race, age, income, education, length of residency, and walking distance from the light rail station. Analysis of their responses creates a more nuanced understanding of the ways that light rail contributes to positive, neutral, and negative emotions associated with gentrification ranging from appreciation of increased accessibility, younger residents, increased property values, and new commercial development to complaints about increased density, higher rents, traffic, noise, and loss of community.

Examining mass shootings from a neighborhood perspective: An analysis of multiple-casualty events and media reporting in Philadelphia, United States

Identifying the people and places affected by mass shootings depends on how “mass shooting” is defined. From the perspective of urban neighborhoods, it is likely the number of people injured within a proximate time and space, which determines the event's impact on perceptions of safety and social cohesion. We aimed to describe the incidence of “neighborhood” mass shootings in one US city and to determine how these events were communicated to the public through news media. This mixed-methods study analyzed Philadelphia, Pennsylvania police data from 2006 to 2015. Using rolling temporal and distance buffers, we isolated shooting events involving multiple victims within a defined time period and geography. Selecting a definition of neighborhood mass shooting consistent with other common mass shooting definitions in which ≥4 victims were shot within 1 h and 100 m, we identified 46 events involving 212 victims over 10 years. We then searched public news media databases and used directed content analysis to describe the range and headline content from reports associated with the 46 events. Neighborhood mass shooting victims were more likely to be younger and female compared to other firearm-injured individuals (p < 0.001). Seven (15%) events received no news media attention, and 30 (77%) of the 39 reported events were covered solely in local/regional news. Only one event was named a “mass shooting” in any associated headline. In Philadelphia, neighborhood mass shootings occur multiple times per year but receive limited media coverage. The population health impact of these events is likely under-appreciated by the public and policymakers.

SOCIAL COHESION AFFECTS THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN FRAILTY AND DISABILITY IN COMMUNITY-DWELLING OLDER ADULTS

The relationships between physical frailty and perceived neighborhood social cohesion (PNSC) and functional disability among community-dwelling older adults are poorly understood. This study aims to (1) examine the associations of frailty and PNSC with disability; and (2) evaluate low PNSC as a risk factor in the association between frailty and disability. A sample of 1645 older adults using multi-stage sampling method in Shanghai were randomly selected in this cross-sectional study. Frailty operationalized as Cardiovascular Health Study criteria (OR=2.4, 95%CI 1.16-4.96 for pre-frailty; OR=7.28, 95%CI 3.37-15.73 for frailty) and PNSC measured as Neighborhood Cohesion Scale (OR=1.81, 95%CI 1.23-2.67) were independently associated with basic and instrumental activities of daily living disability. A significant interaction of frailty and PNSC on disability (F (2, 66)=4.31, P=.014) was found, using a two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Compared to robust individuals with high PNSC, pre-frailty with high PNSC was not significantly associated with disability while pre-frailty with low PNSC was associated with approximate 4-fold increased prevalence of disability (OR=3.87, 95%CI 1.46-10.24, p=.006). Frailty with high PNSC was associated with higher likelihood of disability (OR=6.47, 95%CI 2.35-17.87) and frail individuals with low PNSC stood out with 10-fold increased prevalence of disability (OR=9.94, 95%CI 3.50-28.26). All analyses were controlled for demographical and clinical covariates. Our results suggest high level of social cohesion serves as a buffer against the impact of physical frailty on functional disability. These findings notably imply to the development of interventions for older frail adults from the neighborhood perspective.

IMPLEMENTATION OF GREEN ARCHITECTURE CONCEPT IN MOSQUE DESIGN : A FACE AND ISLAMIC DA’WAH

ABSTRACT : Mosque as a means of worship is very important for Indonesian people who are Muslim majority. Mosques in Indonesia have been numerous and will continue to grow. Environmental issues due to the many building developments have become a global concern today, from the limited natural resources, global warming, climate change, Urban Heat Island (UHI) to its impact on the comfort and health of people. The concept of green architecture has been used to minimize environmental damage from buildings. This design-based research will implement green architecture approach in the mosque design in the context of a particular location to identify problems, possible applications and potential development. The designated location is in the eastern area of Bandung, city gates that has fairly dense place of settlement and transportation.The results showed that green architecture approach with neighborhood perspective criteria can be applied, especially with large scale mosque such as the case. The approach is more holistic and relates to the type of communal building. Criterias such as (1)land ecological enchancement; (2)circulation, movement and connectivity; (3)water management and conservation (4)solid waste and material; (5)community wellbeing strategy; and (6)building and energy, can be applied by combining with various design ideas and responses of site problems. Keywords : Mosque, green architecture, research-based design

The Influence of the Built Environment of Neighborhoods on Residents’ Low-Carbon Travel Mode

Motor vehicle travel is one of the causes of aggravation of CO2 emission, environmental issues and urban problems. The advocation of low-carbon travel is necessary for the achievement of low-carbon city construction and sustainable development in the future. Many studies have shown that built environment tends to influence residents’ travel behavior, and most studies are demonstrated from the macro level of metropolis. However, from the perspective of neighborhoods, much less attention has been paid, especially in developing countries including China. This study chooses 15 neighborhoods in the main districts of Nanjing in China, taking the location of neighborhoods and residents’ socio-economic attributes into consideration, to examine the effects of residential built environment on residents’ mode choice of different travel types, and to propose the recommended values for the most significant variables. The residential built environment attributes are from three dimensions of land use, road network system and transit facilities. The method of this study is three-step and successive. Primarily, a correlation analysis model is applied to initially examine the role that residents’ socio-economic attributes and residential built environment attributes play on residents’ low-carbon travel of three different travel types respectively. Primary significant attributes from these two aspects are preliminarily screened out for the re-screening in the next step. In addition, the study uses multivariate logit regression modeling approach, with significant socio-economic attributes as concomitant variables, to further re-screen out the key variables of built environment. Furthermore, a unary linear regression model is applied to propose the recommended values for the key built environment variables.

Social Capital and Economic Development: A Neighborhood Perspective

Sean Safford’s 2009 book Why the Garden Club Couldn’t Save Youngstown introduces a revolutionary idea that much of a community’s economic resilience is tied to the social capital that exists within it. Recent research suggests that social capital not only benefits those who develop it, but it can serve as a source of economic development in the communities in which it arises. Past quantitative research on the economic benefit of social capital has only examined the city or higher levels of aggregation. This study measures social capital in three diverse socioeconomic neighborhoods to better understand how social capital can serve as a tool for economic development. An ordered probit regression model was developed to examine how individual and neighborhood levels of social capital benefit households within these communities. Moreover, this study addresses how differences in social capital across neighborhoods are explained by both individual and neighborhood characteristics.

Minority Threat Hypothesis and NYPD Stop and Frisk Policy

This study analyzes New York Police Department (NYPD) stop and frisk policy using a minority and Black threat framework. Using Blacks in White-dominated neighborhoods as the reference group, this study compares four distinct police actions (frisks, searches, sanctions, and force used) during 481,027 stops in 2012 in 297 geographic information system (GIS)-defined New York City (NYC) neighborhoods. Descriptive analysis reveals the scope of isolation between Whites and Blacks as well as the ratios of police action for each group within each neighborhood type, with Blacks in White-dominated and nondominated high White neighborhoods exceeding their population proportion and crime propensity ratios across all four police actions, consistent with the Black threat hypothesis. Logistic regression results provide further support for the application of Black threat hypothesis to NYPD stops and frisks. When controlling for other factors, race/neighborhood factors remain significant though the odds ratios are far below the population proportion and crime propensity benchmarks. These results are placed in the context of previous research findings and the implications of minority threat hypothesis are discussed in light of the specific Black threat in NYC. In the aggregate, the findings also include limited support for the “out of place” and defended neighborhood perspectives though much less for the criminogenic perspective relative to Blacks in White-dominated and other race/neighborhood categories.

Racial Encroachment and the Formal Control of Space: Minority Group-Threat and Misdemeanor Arrests in Urban Communities

The study examined the minority group-threat hypothesis across a metropolitan setting to test whether (1) increases in black and Latino representation in communities were associated with increased misdemeanor arrests and (2) if increases in minority groups in historically white communities were associated with increased police arrests. The study argued that threat trigger variables should be measured in terms of difference scores and weighted by initial dominant group representation. The latter argument is informed by the defended neighborhood perspective and assesses the threat hypotheses in historically white communities. Using negative binomial regression modeling that adjusted for spatial autocorrelation, the study found that net of theoretical controls, increases in percent black population were associated with increased black misdemeanor arrests, but only in historically white census tracts. Increases in Latino representation were associated with increased minority misdemeanor arrests both across all tracts generally, as well as in historically majority white tracts.

Social capital and vulnerability from the family, neighborhood, school, and community perspectives

This article reviews research and offers program examples for developing social capital in youth with a range of vulnerabilities: emotional, physical, social, and developmental. Protective factors provided by developing social capital at the individual level include access to support networks, transition to employment, and community connectedness. The authors feature approaches from the cooperative extension system, which links university and community resources, and identify exemplary programs that support social capital development by intervening with families, schools, neighborhoods, and communities.

Pogrom in Gujarat, 2002: Neighborhood Perspectives

The 2002 pogrom in the Indian state of Gujarat, and especially in its largest city, Ahmedabad, left about 1,000 Muslims dead in the city, another 1,000 dead in the state, and about 140,000 homeless, some of them still living in relief camps today. The killing, one of the worst in India since partition in 1947, drew responses of horror from across India and the world. Although the assault on Muslims followed an apparent (all the facts will never be known) assault on Hindu pilgrims travelling through the railway station at Godhra, in eastern Gujarat, in which fifty-nine Hindus burned to death, most observers have argued that the response was not commensurate with the attack, and, of course, it targeted not the criminals who may have set the fire, but a community of Muslims 100 miles away.

Neighborhood and family intersections: Prospective implications for Mexican American adolescents' mental health.

We present an integrated model for understanding Mexican American youth mental health within family, neighborhood, and cultural contexts. We combined two common perspectives on neighborhood effects to hypothesize that (a) parents' perceptions of neighborhood risk would negatively impact their children's mental health by disrupting key parenting and family processes, and (b) objective neighborhood risk would alter the effect parent and family processes had on youth mental health. We further incorporated a cultural perspective to hypothesize that an ethnic minority group's culture-specific values may support parents to successfully confront neighborhood risk. We provided a conservative test of the integrated model by simultaneously examining three parenting and family process variables: maternal warmth, maternal harsh parenting, and family cohesion. The hypothesized model was estimated prospectively in a diverse, community-based sample of Mexican American adolescents and their mothers (N = 749) living in the southwestern United States. Support for specific elements of the hypothesized model varied depending on the parenting or family process variable examined. For family cohesion results were consistent with the combined neighborhood perspectives. The effects of maternal warmth on youth mental health were altered by objective neighborhood risk. For harsh parenting, results were somewhat consistent with the cultural perspective. The value of the integrated model for research on the impacts of family, neighborhood, and cultural contexts on youth mental health are discussed, as are implications for preventive interventions for Mexican American families and youth.

Pushing back the gates: neighborhood perspectives on university-driven revitalization in West Philadelphia

Presented on March 14, 2012 from 6:00 pm-7:30 pm in the Reinsch-Pierce Family Auditorium on the Georgia Tech campus.

Neighborhood, City, or Region: Deconstructing Scale in Planning Frames

Plans usually try to address problems at a certain scale— neighborhood, city, region, or beyond. The field of planning has not engaged in geography’s extensive debates on scale, perhaps since the relevance to planning has not been apparent. I argue planning should attend to scale, based on the literature that describes frames. Frames powerfully direct attention to some problems and solutions, while overlooking others. I illustrate how scale can be part of planning problem definition and solutions with qualitative analysis of a regional transportation plan from the San Francisco Bay Area. The plan contains two distinct, scaled frames: one addresses mobility and economic vitality at the regional scale and the other concerns itself with accessibility from a neighborhood perspective. I call for critical reflection on the use of scale to help the field of planning see problems and possibilities in new ways.