This study was conducted with the objective of finding the perceivable effect of figures and backgrounds on residential streetscapes and their connections in visual complexity. The visual complexity depends on the extent of information a viewer can observe from a visible area. The information includes a number of visual elements along the streetscapes and their diversity and interconnections. The aim of this research was to analyze the structural hierarchical visual complexity of the streetscapes, caused by varied spatial arrangement and numerous spatial connections of the perceivable visual elements. The visual elements of 60 residential streetscapes were classified into figures and backgrounds using human perception of 20 subjects. The identified figures and backgrounds were arranged in a taxonomic diagram representing their connections. These taxonomic diagrams reflect the structural hierarchical visual complexity. Finally, taxonomic entropy was applied to statistically analyze the structural hierarchical visual complexity. When the taxonomic diagram is vertically and horizontally lengthy and the arrangement of the elements of taxonomic diagram is irregular, the complexity increases depicting a large number of figures whose spatial connections impart a high visual complexity to the streetscapes.

G. M. W. L. Gunawardena

Yoichi Kubota

Kiyotaka Fukahori

Visual Complexity Analysis Using Taxonomic Diagrams of Figures and Backgrounds in Japanese Residential Streetscapes

Relying on nationally representative data from the most recent wave of the National Survey of Black Americans (NSBA), the current study examines how past and present neighborhood racial composition is associated with feelings of closeness toward black Americans, black Africans, and black West Indians. In addition, this research tests whether race-based socialization messages received from caregivers or religious socialization messages explain this relationship among a sample from the adult black US population. The findings show that past neighborhood composition is associated with present feelings of closeness toward black Americans and black West Indians but are not associated with close feelings toward black Africans. Current neighborhood racial composition is not associated with feelings of closeness toward any of the groups. Racial socialization messages are associated with closeness towards them all but are found to be largely a function of having a two-parent family during childhood. Religious socialization is also associated with intraracial feelings of closeness. Results suggest that neighborhood racial composition is important to help facilitate positive feelings toward others who share the same race but a different ethnicity.

Antwan Jones

Marcus Andrews

Sara Policastro

Neighborhood Racial Composition, Institutional Socialization, and Intraracial Feelings of Closeness among Black Americans

This paper evaluates the independent effect of the spatial proximity of green urban areas upon the individual subjective well-being of the Milan population (Italy). The methodology is based on a survey undertaken in 2010 using a sample of 1,000 of Milan citizens. Univariate and multivariate analyses and GIS localization have been employed in order to rank the major individual well-being determinants and the relationship between citizens and urban green areas. Results show that the residential proximity of citizens to urban green areas seems to have little bearing on individual subjective well-being.

Giorgio Tavano Blessi

Enzo Grossi

Giovanni Pieretti

Guido Ferilli

Alessandra Landi

Cities, the Urban Green Environment, and Individual Subjective Well-Being: The Case of Milan, Italy

We test whether ethnic diversity in Dutch neighbourhoods and municipalities drives down associational involvement and build on earlier research in two important ways. First, we explicitly take into account the ethnic composition of local voluntary associations, distinguishing involvement in bonding (only in-group members) and bridging (with out-group members) associations. Second, we aim to explain relationships between ethnic diversity and associational involvement, testing two competing sets of predictions derived from conflict and contact theories. Using data from the Netherlands Longitudinal Lifecourse Study (2013), ethnic diversity turns out to hardly affect associational involvement negatively. Only for leisure associations, living in ethnically more diverse municipalities substantially decreases the likelihood to be involved in bonding associations, whereas higher levels of neighbourhood ethnic diversity increase the likelihood to be involved in bridging associations. Moreover, ethnic diversity indirectly affects associational involvement via interethnic contact. Higher levels of ethnic diversity increase interethnic contact which, in turn, is negatively related to involvement in bonding associations. Whereas higher levels of ethnic diversity in neighbourhoods increase perceptions of ethnic threat, these perceptions decrease with higher levels of ethnic diversity in the municipality. Perceptions of ethnic threat do not, however, affect associational involvement. Our results shed more light on the direct and indirect relationships between ethnic diversity and bonding and bridging associational involvement.

Michael Savelkoul

Maurice Gesthuizen

Peer Scheepers

Associational Involvement in Dutch Municipalities and Neighbourhoods: Does Ethnic Diversity Influence Bonding and Bridging Involvement?

An extensive body of literature suggests that physical environment, physical activity, and socioeconomic status (SES) are intrinsically linked to each other and to weight related health problems. In this study, the role of objective and perceived pedestrian environment characteristics (microscale measures) was explored in relation to people&#x2019;s recreational walking patterns in two neighborhoods with opposite SES. A total of 441 street segments were assessed and a total of 133 questionnaires were conducted. The findings suggest that recreational walking can take place beyond a neighborhood&#x2019;s suggested SES when objective and especially perceived microscale characteristics (pedestrian environment) are favorable.

Zeynep Toker

Walking beyond the Socioeconomic Status in an Objectively and Perceptually Walkable Pedestrian Environment

This paper investigates the accuracy of six measures of housing cost differences among US metropolitan areas. Using Census data from 177 metropolitan areas, it tests the measures in two ways. First, it tests the ability of changes in the measures to predict changes in the shelter component of the metropolitan CPI from 1990 to 2000. Second, it tests the ability of the measures themselves to predict a proxy in 2000. A measure based on Fair Market Rents calculated by HUD placed second on the first test but did badly on the second. The housing component of the ACCRA index, a living cost measure frequently used by researchers, performed poorly on both tests. The top performer on both tests was a measure based on the average rent per room for a metropolitan area&#x2019;s dwellings. Researchers wishing to control for living cost differences among places should consider including it in their living cost index.

Todd Easton

Testing Estimates of Housing Cost Differences among US Metropolitan Areas

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Urban Studies Research