Neighborhood Evaluations by City and Suburban Children

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Abstract
A consistent finding in research on housing choice and residential satisfaction has been the preference of parents for suburbs as child-rearing environments. Children themselves though, have rarely been asked about different types of neighborhoods as places to live. The present study is an attempt to address this gap. This article discusses some reasons for the paucity of child-oriented research and develops from the literature a picture of children's own perceptions of city and suburban neighborhoods. The results of an empirical study are then reported. A comparison of the neighborhood evaluations of 148 city and suburban teenagers suggests that both city and suburban children recognize positive as well as negative aspects of their neighborhoods; however, city and suburban neighborhoods do appear to differ in the particular characteristics that are viewed as being positive or negative. Furthermore, using detailed information on each of the individual home environments, differences in children's neighborhood evaluations are found to correspond with measured differences in specific neighborhood features such as child density, number of recreational opportunities, and presence of other selected land uses. Implications for planning and recommendations for further research are discussed.

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