Neighboring in an urban environment
- 1 October 1982
- journal article
- Published by Wiley in American Journal of Community Psychology
- Vol. 10 (5) , 493-509
- https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00894140
Abstract
Neighbors are an informal resource who may act individually to provide socioemotional support to each other as well as collectively to ameliorate problems in their residential environment. To explore when neighbors are likely to interact and provide aid and emotional support for each other, 702 residents living in a neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee, were interviewed during 1978. Factor analysis was used to cluster several variables of individual characteristics of residents related to neighboring. Other indices assessed the block environment. Neighboring activities were found to be associated with an individual's psychological investment in his neighborhood as well as his rootedness and integration on his block, a positive sense of well-being, sex, and life stage. At the neighborhood block level, homogeneity of socioeconomic status (SES) contributed to neighbor relations along with indices of an individual's similarity to block residents. Implications are discussed for the development of neighboring activities and neighborhood organizations.Keywords
This publication has 32 references indexed in Scilit:
- Supporting Families under Stress: The Role of Social NetworksFamily Relations, 1980
- Child Development and Personal Social NetworksChild Development, 1979
- The Community Question: The Intimate Networks of East YorkersAmerican Journal of Sociology, 1979
- Explorations in Neighborhood DifferentiationThe Sociological Quarterly, 1978
- Community Attachment in Mass SocietyAmerican Sociological Review, 1974
- Primary Group Structures and Their Functions: Kin, Neighbors, and FriendsAmerican Sociological Review, 1969
- Empirical Considerations on the Problem of Social Integration*Sociological Inquiry, 1969
- Reactions against the Mass SocietyThe Sociological Quarterly, 1962
- The Social Debt: An Investigation of Lower-Class and Middle-Class Norms of Social ObligationAmerican Sociological Review, 1962
- Neighborhood and Community ParticipationJournal of Social Issues, 1960