The anatomy of the safe and social suburb: An exploratory study of the built environment, social capital and residents’ perceptions of safety

Abstract

This study explored the relationship between social capital and aspects of the built environment, focusing in particular on the walkability of suburbs as determined by street network design and the mix of land uses. We measured social capital and feelings of personal safety in 335 residents of three suburbs in metropolitan Perth, WA, and collected objective and perceived data on the built environment. After adjustment for demographic factors, the built environment was found to have a significant but small effect on social capital and feelings of safety, particularly in relation to the number and perceived adequacy of destinations. A high level of neighbourhood upkeep was associated with both higher social capital and feelings of safety.

Introduction

In the absence of walkable public places—streets, squares, and parks, the public realm—people of diverse ages, races, and beliefs are unlikely to meet and talk. (Duany et al., 2001, p. 60)

Escalating research and policy attention to area variability in health has been paralleled by increasing interest in area variations in social capital. This research has been driven from a health perspective, and has encompassed studies of social capital variability between nations (Kennelly et al., 2003; Pollack and von dem Knesebeck, 2004), states (Holtgrave and Crosby, 2003), geographical regions (Veenstra, 2005), and neighbourhoods (Macintyre and Ellaway, 2000; Leyden, 2003; McCulloch, 2003; Altschuler et al., 2004). Social capital is characterized by a diverse array of definitions and research and policy applications, but is commonly described as the features of social life—networks, norms and trust—that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives (Putnam, 1996).

Although sometimes equivocal, a growing body of research indicates that neighbourhood differences in social capital remain after adjusting for individual factors such as age, sex, marital status, race and socioeconomic factors such as income and education (Hyyppä and Mäki, 2003; McCulloch, 2003; Subramanian et al., 2003; Sundquist and Yang, 2007). Beneath observed area and neighbourhood variations in social capital, however, are a multitude of environmental factors that might influence social capital formation or decomposition and, in turn, health.

Qualitative research has identified neighbourhood factors such as local resources and services, area history, opportunities for meeting others or for participation, as relevant to the development of trust, norms of cooperation and reciprocity and patterns of mutual aid and information exchange (Cattell, 2001; Baum and Palmer, 2002; Boneham and Sixsmith, 2006). Empirical studies of the nexus between social capital and specific physical attributes of neighbourhoods began to emerge in the literature in the late 1990s (Macintyre and Ellaway, 1998, Macintyre and Ellaway, 1999; and Saegert and Winkel, 1998), but were followed by a relative hiatus in uptake or publication by other researchers. Pertinent empirical studies published more recently include investigations of the relationship between social capital and neighbourhood walkability (Lund, 2002, Lund, 2003; Leyden, 2003), housing for seniors (Cannuscio et al., 2003) and social disorganization and physical neighbourhood characteristics (McCulloch, 2003). Providing aesthetic environments conducive to walking (Ball et al., 2001) and opportunities for social interaction (Altschuler et al., 2004) also appear relevant to social capital formation.

Physical environments can facilitate informal neighbouring through the availability of opportunities for casual interaction between neighbours (Baum and Palmer, 2002). There is empirical evidence that chance encounters between residents are explained most significantly by frequency of walking (Lund, 2003), and that walking behaviour is encouraged by positive perceptions of the physical environment (Handy et al., 2002; Lund, 2003; Foster et al., 2004). Other elements that facilitate interaction include meeting places (both formal and informal), mixed use planning and housing design (Cattell, 2001).

Perceptions of safety also affect perceptions of walkability (Baum and Palmer, 2002; Lund, 2002) and actual physical activity (Shenassa et al., 2006), and may therefore mediate the formation of social capital. Previous research has found that positive perceptions of suburb safety encouraged people to interact (Baum and Palmer, 2002), and that people who perceived the walking environment to be safe and interesting were more likely to rate their sense of community highly (Lund, 2002). If people are fearful they may be less likely to go out of their home, use local facilities, attend clubs or functions or interact with strangers or people they meet ‘in the street’, particularly at night. Moreover, as demonstrated in the fear of crime literature, perceptions can be a powerful and independent factor that may affect people through different pathways than actual experiences (Pain, 2000); hence, residents’ perceptions of safety as conveyed by the built environment are also pertinent.

Together, these findings suggest that suburbs without attractive walking destinations, footpaths, or a safe and interesting walking environment, are less likely to provide opportunities for informal interaction. Yet conventional suburban development is characterized by highly segregated land uses, automobile dependence, low levels of street connectivity and a lack of footpaths. Described colloquially as ‘urban sprawl’, conventional development has been criticized for producing poor health outcomes, particularly regarding obesity (Frank et al., 2004; Lopez, 2004). Using a metropolitan sprawl index, sprawl has been shown to be a predictor of both chronic medical conditions (Sturm and Cohen, 2003) and obesity (Lopez, 2004). Moreover, sprawl has been associated with weaker social ties (Frumkin, 2002) and social isolation (Power, 2001).

Although not couched in the language of social capital per se, ‘new urbanism’ refers to an urban planning paradigm that seeks to promote community bonds (Bothwell et al., 1998), sense of community (Joongsub and Kaplan, 2004) and pedestrian-friendly neighbourhoods (Brown et al., 1998). The key design principles underpinning new urbanism include grid-style interconnected streets, mixed land use, well-designed public buildings and gathering places, high residential density and quality parks and conservation land areas (Deitrick and Ellis, 2004). Of particular interest to this study is the way in which street patterns can divide and connect suburban space, thereby influencing ‘where residents can go and what they observe and interact with along the way’ (Southworth and Owens, 1993, p. 273).

While developers of new residential developments and urban renewal initiatives often enthusiastically market ‘sense of community’, healthy lifestyles and community well-being, there remains a need to better understand the precise mechanisms by which the built environment affects the social dynamics and interactions within neighbourhoods (Herbert and Smith, 1997; Leyden, 2003). Recent research suggests that grid street networks and mixed land use facilitate the formation of social capital (Leyden, 2003) and sense of community (Lund, 2002) because it provides a more ‘walkable’ environment, thereby facilitating casual interaction between neighbours. Another study by Lund (2003) found that positive environmental perceptions resulted in more walking, and therefore more chance encounters. However, strolling trips (i.e., recreational walking) were more conducive to neighbouring behaviour than were destination trips (Lund, 2003), raising the question as to whether neighbourhoods that encourage utilitarian trips hinder or facilitate the development of social capital.

Such findings also need to be viewed in the context of the measures used. Leyden's measure of walkability was based on the perceptions and ratings of both the researcher and residents of the degree to which neighbourhoods were pedestrian oriented and mixed use. By contrast, our study sought to assess whether the relationship between walkability and social capital holds when objectively measured elements of suburb design are used in the analysis. From our review of the literature, Lund's study published in 2003 (Lund, 2003) is the only other to have included an objective measure of walkability, which entailed simply indicating the presence or not of retail destinations and parks. Further research is required to learn how distinct aspects of the built environment, including the availability and number of key destinations, influence the formation of social capital.

The present exploratory study examined the association between specific, objectively measured aspects of the built environment on social capital and feelings of safety. It also explored the relationships between social capital, feelings of safety and participation in activities within the suburb. The study was conducted in three suburbs in Perth, WA. Perth is a low-density, highly automobile-dependent city (Newman, 1972), but with some traditional neighbourhoods in the inner suburbs. We hypothesized that the elements of the built environment that improve walkability—such as destinations, connectivity and upkeep—would be positively related to social capital and feelings of safety. We also hypothesized that feelings of safety and participation within the suburb would be related to social capital.