Neighborhood Transition Research Articles

Changes in mixed ethnicity households and neighbourhood transitions in England and Wales.

Conventional explanations of neighbourhood ethnic transitions consider what drives differential growth in ethnic group populations without regard to household composition. We enrich these nonhousehold approaches by using consistent Census data on neighbourhoods and households for England and Wales for 2001, 2011 and 2021 to analyse connections between mixed-ethnicity households and neighbourhood ethnic diversity. We employ a neighbourhood typology of ethnic diversity that identifies neighbourhoods as either low- or moderate-diversity, or high-diversity, where no single ethnic group is in the majority. We focus particularly on White-majority and highly diverse neighbourhoods given the dominance of the former in residential spaces in England and Wales, and because they are the principal source of transitions to highly diverse neighbourhoods. Mixed-ethnicity households have become an increasingly important feature of the ethnic diversification of England and Wales; by 2021, almost 15% of multiperson households were mixed, a growth from 12% in 2011 and 9% in 2001. We find that higher levels of neighbourhood ethnic diversity are associated with higher shares of mixed-ethnicity households. In high-diversity neighbourhoods, for example, around 30% of multiperson households (nearly a quarter of a million households) were ethnically mixed in 2021. Levels of household mixing in moderate-diversity White neighbourhoods were considerably higher than in low-diversity White neighbourhoods. The same is found for diversifying neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods that become more ethnically diverse were typically home to higher rates of mixed-ethnicity households. Stably moderately diverse White neighbourhoods also had a higher proportion of mixed households. Studies of neighbourhood transition that focus on individuals in neighbourhoods may be missing important processes operating in the intimate spaces of the home. Including this intermediate scale of analysis adds to our understanding of neighbourhood ethnic mixing and processes of integration.

Dual-Channel Feature Enhanced Collaborative Filtering Recommendation Algorithm

The dual-channel graph collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm (DCCF) suppresses the over-smoothing problem and overcomes the problem of expansion in local structures only in graph collaborative filtering. However, DCCF has the following problems: the fixed threshold of transfer probability leads to a decrease in filtering effect of neighborhood information; the K-means clustering algorithm is prone to trapping clustering results into local optima, resulting in incomplete global interaction graphs; and the impact of time factors on the predicted results was not considered. To solve these problems, a dual-channel feature enhanced collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm (DCFECF) is proposed. Firstly, the self-attention mechanism and weighted average method are used to calculate the threshold of neighborhood transition probability for each order in local convolutional channels; secondly, the K-means++ clustering algorithm is used to determine the clustering center in the global convolutional channel, and the fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm is used for clustering to solve the local optimal problem; then, time factor is introduced to further improve predicted results, making them more accurate. Comparative experiments using normalized discounted cumulative gain (NDCG) and recall as evaluation metrics on three publicly available datasets showed that DCFECF improved by up to 2.3% and 4.1% on two metrics compared to DCCF.

There Goes the Neighborhood: How Racial Threat Shapes the Formation of Integrated and Segregated Neighborhoods

Neighborhoods in the United States are highly segregated by race. Black–white segregation is particularly acute. Although racial segregation has been declining in recent years, it remains extremely high—especially in the largest metropolitan areas. The historical pattern has been that as African Americans move into a neighborhood, whites move out and thus the neighborhood (gradually or rapidly) transitions from predominantly white to predominantly black. A seemingly contradictory pattern has recently been observed: integrated neighborhoods are becoming more common. Why do some neighborhoods transition from white to black and others become integrated? We use racial competition theory to answer this question. We examine the characteristics of stable, integrated neighborhoods and contrast them with segregated predominantly white, predominantly black, and rapidly transitioning neighborhoods in six large metropolitan areas. We find that the location of black neighborhoods is a key factor in whether an integrated neighborhood remains integrated. Specifically, we find integrated neighborhoods are spatially distant from majority black neighborhoods while transitioning neighborhoods are adjacent to them. Our findings support the “sense of threat” hypothesis of racial competition theory.

Liveability transitioning: results of a pilot study of walking, accessibility, and social connection strengths weaknesses in established suburbs in Adelaide

ABSTRACT Population health is profoundly affected by the liveability of the urban environments where people live. In Australia today most people live in suburbs which fall well short of the form and function required for liveability, which is adversely affecting population health and health equity. We produced the Healthy Urban Neighbourhood Transition Tool (HUNTT) to analyze the existing liveability strengths and weaknesses of neighbourhoods with the objective of assessing their potential for, and pathways required, for a liveability transition. This paper presents a summary of the findings of the application of the HUNTT in 22 suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia, looking at the liveability determinant of walkability. The study showed that there were walkability strengths and weaknesses in all surveyed suburbs, and weaknesses tended to proliferate more in middle and all outer suburbs and those with lower median incomes. It also showed that a walkability transition is possible in all the suburbs surveyed. However, it would require coordination between multiple stakeholders, government regulatory changes and intervention, and significant public funding.

Housing estates' trajectories in post-socialist countries: Similarities and differences of Estonian and Czech cities

An increasing number of studies focus on the divergent trajectories of housing estates in post-socialist cities; however, they are mostly case studies of particular cities. There is little research that offers a more systematic and comparative analysis of different housing estates between the settlement systems of different countries. This study aims to explore the trajectories of housing estates from 1989 to 2011 by examining neighbourhood transitions in Estonian and Czech cities based on socio-economic, demographic, and ethnic characteristics of their residents. We use data from population censuses and clustering techniques to create typologies of housing estate neighbourhoods. Our results suggest that the main development trajectory of Estonian and Czech housing estates has been stability with neighbourhoods remaining in the same housing estate type and developing similarly as other urban neighbourhoods. This is mainly related to housing market specifics of post-socialist countries, and ageing being the main mechanisms of residential change of housing estates. Other types of trajectories are differentiated along two lines: the position of the city within the settlement system and the location of heavy industry in the city during the socialist period, indicating persistent impact of socialist urban development for housing estates.

Community Drawing and Storytelling to Understand the Place Experience of Walking and Cycling in Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Transit infrastructure is a critical determinant of the layout and sustainability performance of residential landscapes and neighborhoods. Though the spatial aspects of transit design and their associated impact on health, congestion, air pollution, accident rates, and emissions of greenhouse gases are well understood, the experiential-qualitative aspects of mobility have often been ignored in the travel and transport literature. This paper presents the place-understandings of pedestrians and cyclists concerning neighborhood safety in Dushanbe, the capital city of Tajikistan. Community perspectives were captured through drawing and storytelling workshops as a method of public engagement through creative experience. While reporting on the veracity of this collaborative, creative, and place-based methodology, the paper presents workshop outcomes that describe problematic non-auto neighborhood transit experiences that, if unchecked, could constitute a significant challenge to the sustainable post-Soviet transformation of Dushanbe’s residential neighborhoods.

Neighbourhood trajectories in Stockholm: Investigating the role of mobility and in situ change

This paper studies the dynamics of neighbourhood change and neighbourhood stability, using the case of Stockholm during the period 1990–2015. We employ Swedish register data and a three-step methodology to investigate to what extent and how neighbourhoods’ characteristics change over time and the factors driving those changes. Firstly, we apply k-means clustering to a set of socioeconomic, housing and demographic characteristics at the neighbourhood level, and identify a typology of neighbourhood states. Secondly, we build neighbourhood trajectories out of the states over time and use sequence analysis to obtain ideal-typical neighbourhood trajectories. Finally, we decompose the neighbourhood change into selective mobility, i.e., the differences in the characteristics of in- and out-movers, and in situ change of sitting residents. Our results reveal a mixed picture, with the role of selective mobility and in situ change varying depending on the type of neighbourhood transition and the variable under consideration. Trajectories of neighbourhood upgrading towards elite status in the Stockholm city-centre and downward trajectories ending in vulnerability in the periphery are mainly driven by selective mobility. Other typical trajectories comprise the emergence of newly built elite areas and the ageing of certain middle-class areas, the latter mostly driven by ageing of sitting residents.

Contributors

Contributors

Immigration, segregation and neighborhood change in Berlin

Even though the issue of immigrant-native segregation in Europe has been continuously researched for the last thirty years the attempts to illuminate the changing levels of ethnic segregation in the European city in the 21st century leave the case of Germany largely unexplored. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the evolving patterns of segregation and neighborhood change in Berlin in the 2010s (2007-2016). The traditional indices of segregation and the neighborhood typology are used to assess changes in the levels of segregation and patterns of residential intermixing, respectively. We also employ the sequence analysis method to investigate full trajectories of neighborhood change, and a regression tree for the sequences of neighborhood transitions is used to evaluate the effect of urban structure on ethnic neighborhood change. Despite considerable immigration, in total, immigrant-native segregation in Berlin declined over the last decade. Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, along with the selective spatial effects of international immigration, the spatial division of Berlin into the inner- and outer-city appears to be a decisive factor in the evolution of the local patterns of immigrant-native residential intermixing.

Loneliness in urbanising China.

Despite the growing literature on loneliness, little attention has been paid to the impact of broader changes in social structure and environment on individuals' experience of loneliness. Drawing on data from the 2018 Urbanization and Quality of Life Survey (N=3,229) conducted in 40 localities undergoing rural-urban transition in China, this study investigates how measures of urbanisation (including population density, duration of urban status, neighbourhood transition and housing type) are associated with residents' loneliness. We revised measures of the six-item De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale, differentiated between emotional and social loneliness, estimated multi-level mixed-effects regressions and controlled for a number of individual-level covariates. The results show that emotional loneliness and social loneliness have different patterns of association with multi-level covariates: urbanisation at county, township and neighbourhood levels is significantly associated with emotional loneliness, whereas residence in temporary housing is a clear risk factor for social loneliness. The analyses further demonstrate that the revised measures of loneliness address concerns about the original scale, offer a clearer sense of the degrees of loneliness and are strongly associated with multi-level covariates and psychological distress. In addition to showing how urbanisation leads to greater individual loneliness, our research also illustrates how to model locational parameters in analyses of individual well-being.

Bayesian damage recognition in document images based on a joint global and local homogeneity model

Physical damages (such as torn-offs and scratches) are commonly seen in historical documents. Recognition of such damages is currently absent in digitization-and-information-extraction (DIE) systems but crucial for automatic document comprehension and exploitation. In this paper we propose a generic damage recognition (DR) method based on a joint global and local modeling of the text homogeneity (TH) pattern exhibited in document images. More specifically, a connected component (CC) based formulation is developed as a global homogeneity measure, where TH is characterized using a probabilistic graph model for a coarse recognition of damaged regions. A multi-resolution analysis (MRA) of TH is further developed for a granular within-CC recognition of damage pixels, where the disparity between damage and text pixels is characterized by exploiting neighborhood transitions. This enables the formulation of a local homogeneity measure, where the neighborhood transition around an individual pixel is modeled using the propagation of the approximation coefficients of a stationary wavelet transform (SWT). The proposed global and local homogeneity measures are integrated as a joint likelihood in a Bayesian model with a Markov random field (MRF) prior, where DR is formulated as a maximum a posterior (MAP) inference which is addressed using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling. The resulting algorithm is tested on a set of real-life historical newspaper images containing damages of varying size and shape. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both F-measures and the Intersection-over-Union (IoU) metric, where test results demonstrate the promising potential of the proposed method.

A Markov model of urban evolution: Neighbourhood change as a complex process.

This paper seeks to advance neighbourhood change research and complexity theories of cities by developing and exploring a Markov model of socio-spatial neighbourhood evolution in Toronto, Canada. First, we classify Toronto neighbourhoods into distinct groups using established geodemographic segmentation techniques, a relatively novel application in this geographic setting. Extending previous studies, we pursue a hierarchical approach to classifying neighbourhoods that situates many neighbourhood types within the city’s broader structure. Our hierarchical approach is able to incorporate a richer set of types than most past research and allows us to study how neighbourhoods’ positions within this hierarchy shape their trajectories of change. Second, we use Markov models to identify generative processes that produce patterns of change in the city’s distribution of neighbourhood types. Moreover, we add a spatial component to the Markov process to uncover the extent to which change in one type of neighbourhood depends on the character of nearby neighbourhoods. In contrast to the few studies that have explored Markov models in this research tradition, we validate the model’s predictive power. Third, we demonstrate how to use such models in theoretical scenarios considering the impact on the city’s predicted evolutionary trajectory when existing probabilities of neighbourhood transitions or distributions of neighbourhood types would hypothetically change. Markov models of transition patterns prove to be highly accurate in predicting the final distribution of neighbourhood types. Counterfactual scenarios empirically demonstrate urban complexity: small initial changes reverberate throughout the system, and unfold differently depending on their initial geographic distribution. These scenarios show the value of complexity as a framework for interpreting data and guiding scenario-based planning exercises.

The evolution and stability of multi-ethnic residential neighbourhoods in England.

This paper analyses the most ethnically diverse spaces in England. We define multi-ethnic neighbourhoods as spaces where no one group is in a majority and at least five ethnic groups have representation. Around 4% of all English neighbourhoods (Lower Layer Super Output Areas) met these criteria in 2011. Often mislabelled as “segregated” spaces, the growth of ethnically diverse neighbourhoods helps benchmark increased inter-ethnic contact, yet we know very little about their spatial extent and the dynamics of their expansion. We use Census data for 1991, 2001, and 2011 to consider how neighbourhood-level diversity has changed during a period of substantial increase in ethnic diversity at the national scale. To what extent did these highly diverse areas grow, and what is the geography of that growth? Which types of areas did these neighbourhoods transition from? For example, were multi-ethnic neighbourhoods formerly low or moderately diverse, and which groups dominated these locales? We also consider if multi-ethnic neighbourhoods are here to stay, or if they are compositionally unstable. We reveal a surprising aspect in England’s neighbourhood transitions: multi-ethnic neighbourhoods are highly stable, and increasingly so. Some 88% of neighbourhoods that were multi-ethnic in 1991 retained their high-diversity status in 2001, while over 95% of 2001 multi-ethnic neighbourhoods remained highly diverse by 2011. This is a different story to that of the USA, where high-diversity neighbourhoods have received more scholarly attention, and where these neighbourhoods have high attrition rates, functioning as stepping stones to another type of space. We explore the demographic and housing dynamics associated with this stability.

The returned

Amid a globalised crisis in secure housing provision, this article zooms in on the specific experiences of older working-class people coping with public housing demolition and forced neighbourhood transition in London. London’s new-build mixed tenure housing developments provide varying proportions of social rental housing, some of it made available to tenants of the council estate it replaced. This article examines the experiences of older people who have taken up the ‘opportunity’ of ‘return’ and explores the multi-faceted work they are forced to undertake as they move into unfamiliar and capricious social, physical and political landscapes superimposed on the collapsed infrastructure of their old estate. The article brings themes of ‘un-homing’, ageing in place and everyday ‘repair’ work into encounter and calls for greater qualitative understanding of the ‘return’ experience as a dimension of forced relocation by housing restructuring and tenurial mixing projects.

Abstract C085: Neighborhood built environment was significantly associated with colorectal cancer screening among underserved Vietnamese American adults

Abstract Introduction: Colorectal Cancer (CRC) places a significant burden among Asian Americans, and prevailing as the second most common cancer diagnosis and third leading cause of cancer mortality. Vietnamese Americans represent an Asian American subgroup with many being foreign-born, having limited English proficiency, living in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods and reporting substantially low levels of CRC screening. The built environment that surrounds where individuals reside impacts health outcomes and behaviors, including cancer risk factors and morbidity. The purpose of the study was to determine whether neighborhood walkability and transit accessibility were associated with CRC screening among underserved Vietnamese Americans. Methods: Vietnamese American adults aged 50 and older enrolled in a multilevel CRC screening intervention were recruited from 20 community-based organizations in the Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey regions. A total of 804 cross-sectional baseline surveys were collected from participants to determine their screening behavior, including past colonoscopy and fecal immunochemical test (FIT) screenings. Built environmental factors were measured using the Walk Score™ and Transit Score™. Results: Multiple logistic regression analyses illustrated that a one unit increase in Transit ScoreÒ was associated with an 2.6% higher odds of obtaining a colonoscopy (OR 1.026, 95% CI 1.001-1.051, p=0.039) and 7% higher odds of obtaining a FIT (OR 1.069, 95% CI 1.025-1.116, p=0.002) after controlling for covariates including age, gender, marital status, education level health insurance status, having a primary care physician and English fluency. Neighborhood walkability measured by the Walk Score was not significantly associated with having obtained a colonoscopy or FIT. Discussion: This study elucidates the impact of the built environment on CRC screening and accessibility of services among Vietnamese Americans. Future assessment and intervention studies should address and incorporate built environmental components to address CRC risk behaviors and screening among potentially underserved populations. Keywords: built environment; colorectal cancer screening; Vietnamese Americans Acknowledgement This research project was supported by grant U01MD010627 (PI: Grace X. Ma, PhD) funded by National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) of National Institute of Health (NIH), and partially supported by the grant of U54 CA221704(5) funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of NIH (Contact PIs: Grace X. Ma, PhD and Olorunseun O. Ogunwobi, MD, PhD). The contents of this abstract are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of NIMHD or the NCI, NIH. Citation Format: Aisha Bhimla, Cecily Johnson, Phuong Do, Minsun Lee, Grace X Ma. Neighborhood built environment was significantly associated with colorectal cancer screening among underserved Vietnamese American adults [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2019 Sep 20-23; San Francisco, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(6 Suppl_2):Abstract nr C085.

Racial Differentials in the Components of Population Change and Neighborhood Transitions in New York City, 1980–2010: The Distinct Role of Asian Net Inflows in the Age of Net Outflows of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics

We examine New York’s components of population change—net migration and natural increase—by race and space to explain increases in integrated and minority neighborhoods, in this era of greater ethnoracial diversity. The city has net outflows of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, and net Asian inflows, a new dynamic that has reordered its neighborhoods. Asians, often joined by Hispanics, moved into White neighborhoods without triggering White flight, resulting in integrated neighborhoods without Blacks. These neighborhoods constitute a plurality, furthering Black exclusion. Minority neighborhoods saw net outflows, an overlooked phenomenon, but expanded thanks to natural increase, which maintains the existing racial structure. White inflows have helped transition some minority neighborhoods to integrated areas, though integrated neighborhoods with Blacks declined overall. As Asians and Hispanics occupy historically White spaces, this warrants a reconceptualization of race and the emerging racial hierarchy, and a focus on the gatekeeper role of Asians and Hispanics.

Transit investments and neighborhood change: On the likelihood of change

This paper is focused on the identification of, and the dynamics associated with, neighborhoods that are more prone to undergo socioeconomic and demographic changes following rail transit investments. Utilizing data from 9 metropolitan areas that have invested in light rail between 1980 and 2010, a k-means clustering approach is used to construct discrete multivariate neighborhood typologies. Together with Markov chains, we are able to examine transitions between neighborhood types before and after the opening of a station. Results for affected neighborhoods are compared to city-wide transitions to uncover differences. Our findings suggest that there is a significant difference in transit and non-transit neighborhood transitions. There also appears to be a difference in trajectories between Walk-and-Ride and Park-and-Ride neighborhoods. While neighborhoods are largely stable over time, impoverished neighborhoods are most likely to experience changes (such as gentrification) following the opening of a transit station. The most affluent neighborhoods are the least likely to experience change but are associated with the most probable trajectory of change featuring densification. Finally, there is little evidence that socioeconomic ascent following station openings is associated with significant changes in racial composition. Knowledge about neighborhood dynamics associated with transit investments can aid policy makers and planners in achieving socioeconomic goals of transit investments.

Network Connections and Neighbourhood Perception: Using Social Media Postings to Capture Attitudes among Twitter Users in Estonia

Abstract The residential landscape of a city is key to its economic, social, and cultural functioning. Following the collapse of communist rule in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the late 1980s and early 1990s, urban residential dynamics and household mobility have been critical to urban change under new economies and political systems. This article explores neighbourhood perception, which is a link in the chain to better explanation of socio-spatial processes (and their interruption by the socialist system). We use a novel data set – opinions expressed on one of social media (Twitter), and a novel empirical method – neural network analysis, to explore people’s current attitudes and perceptions about the neighbourhoods and districts in Tartu, Estonia. The findings suggest that Twitter comments about urban neighbourhoods display attitudinal and perceptual commentary, which is subdued compared to other subjects. The socialist goal of homogeneity in neighbourhoods is not reflected in present day perspectives about urban neighbourhoods, 25 years after the disintegration of the USSR. Ambivalence about neighbourhoods persists, but this ambivalence may be in flux. Older, formerly neglected neighbourhoods, the subject of positive perception on social media, are currently experiencing increased investment, and the observed trends in our data support a narrative of neighbourhood transition.

Temporal dynamics in local vehicle ownership for Great Britain

This article explores the stability of local vehicle ownership rates in Great Britain using the technique of spatial Markov chain analysis. Non-spatial Markov chain processes describe the transition of neighbourhoods through levels of ownership with no regard to their neighbourhood context. In reality however, how a neighbourhood transitions to different levels of ownership could be influenced by its neighbourhood context. A spatial Markov chain accounts for this context by estimating transition properties that are conditioned on the surrounding neighbourhood. These spatial Markov chain properties are estimated using a long run census time series from 1971 to 2011 of household vehicle ownership rates in Great Britain. These processes show that there is different behaviour in how neighbourhoods transition between levels of ownership depending on the context of their surrounding neighbours. The general finding is that the spatial Markov process will lead to a greater homogeneity in levels of ownership in each locality, with neighbourhoods surrounded by relatively low ownership neighbourhoods taking longer than a non-spatial Markov process would suggest to transition to higher levels, whilst neighbourhoods of high ownership surrounded by high ownership neighbourhoods take longer to transition to lower levels. This work corroborates Tobler's first law of geography “Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things” but also provides practical guidance. Firstly, in modelling ownership, spatial effects need to be tested and when present, accounted for in the model formulation. Secondly, in a policy context, the surrounding neighbourhood situation is important, with neighbourhoods having a tendency towards homogeneity of ownership levels. This allows for the effective planning of transport provision for local services. Thirdly, vehicle ownership is often used as a proxy for the social and aspirational nature of an area and these results suggest that these properties will persist for a prolonged period, possibly perpetuating and exacerbating differentials in society.

Examining the influence of major life events as drivers of residential mobility and neighbourhood transitions

Examining the influence of major life events as drivers of residential mobility and neighbourhood transitions