School of Population Health, The University of Western Australia, 10 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, Perth, Australia.
Soc Sci Med. 2010 May;70(9):1381-90. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.01.021. Epub 2010 Feb 12.
The aim of this study is to examine the association between sense of community, walking, and neighborhood design characteristics. The current study is based on a sub-sample of participants (n=609) from the US Atlanta SMARTRAQ study who completed a telephone survey capturing physical activity patterns, neighborhood perceptions, and social interactions. Objective measures of neighborhood form were also computed. Univariate and multivariate models (General Linear Models (GLM)) were used to examine the association between sense of community (SofC) and aspects of the built environment, physical activity, and neighborhood perceptions. In multivariate models the impact on SofC was examined with progressive adjustment for demographics characteristics followed by walking behavior, neighborhood design features, neighborhood perceptions and time spent traveling in a car. After adjustment, SofC was positively associated with leisurely walking (days/week), home ownership, seeing neighbors when walking and the presence of interesting sites. SofC was also associated with higher commercial floor space to land area ratios (FAR) - a proxy for walkable site design that captures the degree to which retail destinations are set back from the street, the amount of surface parking, and urban design of an area. Conversely the presence of more mixed use and perceptions of steep hills were inversely associated with SofC. SofC is enhanced by living in areas that encourage leisurely walking, hence it is associated with living in neighbourhoods with lower levels of land use mix, but higher levels of commercial FAR. Our results suggest that in terms of SofC, the presence of commercial destinations may inhibit social interaction among local residents unless urban design is used to create convivial pedestrian-friendly commercial areas, e.g., providing street frontage, rather than flat surface parking. This finding has policy implications and warrants further investigation.
本研究旨在探讨社区感、步行和邻里设计特征之间的关联。本研究基于美国亚特兰大 SMARTRAQ 研究的参与者子样本（n=609），他们完成了一项电话调查，调查内容包括体力活动模式、邻里感知和社会互动。还计算了邻里形态的客观指标。使用单变量和多变量模型（一般线性模型（GLM））来检验社区感（SofC）与建成环境、体力活动和邻里感知方面的各个方面之间的关联。在多变量模型中，通过逐步调整人口统计学特征、步行行为、邻里设计特征、邻里感知和在汽车中行驶的时间来检验对 SofC 的影响。调整后，SofC 与悠闲步行（天/周）、自有住房、步行时看到邻居以及有趣场所的存在呈正相关。SofC 还与较高的商业建筑面积与土地面积比（FAR）相关，这是一个可步行的场地设计指标，反映了零售目的地与街道的距离、表面停车量以及一个地区的城市设计程度。相反，混合用途的存在和对陡坡的感知与 SofC 呈负相关。居住在鼓励悠闲步行的地区会增强社区感，因此与居住在土地利用混合程度较低、商业 FAR 水平较高的社区相关。我们的研究结果表明，就 SofC 而言，商业目的地的存在可能会抑制当地居民之间的社会互动，除非城市设计用于创建宜人的、适合行人的商业区域，例如提供临街面，而不是平面停车场。这一发现具有政策意义，值得进一步研究。
