Utah is a popular second-home destination due to its unique landscapes that offer numerous natural amenities. Therefore, this research utilizes a mail survey of residents in six Utah counties to examine if seasonal residents become attached to their local communities in the same way as year-round residents. The objective of this research was two-fold: 1) to determine if the commonly cited dimensions of community attachment are an accurate representation of the concept itself; and 2) to determine if the foundations of community attachment, based on those conceptual dimensions, are different for year-round and seasonal homeowners. Prior research has shown that length of residence is the best predictor of community attachment. Therefore, a measure of length of residence for year-round residents is used, while a proxy measure of frequency of visitation to seasonal homes is used for seasonal residents. In addition to the residency categories, traditional sociodemographics are used as control variables. Structural equation models, which allow for the use of latent variables, are utilized to complete the objectives of this research. In general, levels of attachment were highest for longstanding year-round residents. Additionally, newcomer year-round residents and seasonal residents who visit their secondary communities more often possessed attachment, but at slightly lower levels than year-round longstanding residents. Seasonal residents who visit their seasonal communities less frequently had the lowest levels of community attachment. The multivariate results revealed that a multidimensional conceptualization of community attachment is appropriate. The operationalization of the commonly cited dimensions of community attachment (social bonds, participation and sentiments) used in this research all proved to be important elements of the higher order construct "community attachment" for both year-round and seasonal residents. Finally, the results indicated that the foundations of community attachment are different for seasonal and year-round residents. For year-round residents, community attachment is best predicted by the social bonds dimension, while for seasonal residents the participation dimension is the most important. In all, however, all three of the dimensions of community attachment used herein are important, thereby indicating that any future research on this important topic would be best suited to use a multidimensional conceptualization of community attachment.

This research is a study of residential preferences and moving tendency of teachers in public schools in Kaohsiung who applied for retirement in 2003. It is intended to find out if there is any influence of personal backgrounds or needs of the subjects on their residential preferences and moving tendency, if their preferences are personal or environmental and if they find the current residences ideal¡Xif they do, what are the characteristics of their ideal residences and if not, what are the reasons for them to move? Moreover, if they decided to stay where they are now living even when not satisfied with the residences, what are the reasons that stop them from moving? In the study, questionnaires were mailed to public high school teachers in Kaohsiung who were registered to retire in 2003. 378 of the questionnaires were answered and returned, accounting for 30% of the total amount. Among the residences of the subjects, the Daliao, Renwu, Linyuan and Qiaotou townships in Kaohsiung County were categorized as the suburban areas, the Gushan, Zhuoying, Nanzi, Qianzhen, Qijin and Xiaogang districts in Kaohsiung City were the urban areas while the Yanchen, Sanmin, Qianjin, Xinxing and Lingya districts were the downtown areas. The statistic analysis of the returned questionnaires indicated significant connections among the subjects¡¦ ideal residences, their birth places, the places they have lived the longest and the places where they grew up. For subjects now living in downtown and urban areas, their preferable residences were the suburban area and then the downtown area, the countryside, small town and middle-size city in the order of preference. For subjects living in the suburban areas, their ideal residences were, from the most preferred to the least, the suburban area, the countryside, middle-size city, small town and the downtown area. As for the ideal county or city for residence, many of the subjects found the county or city where they are currently living satisfactory and most of these subjects are now living in the suburban areas. In terms of moving tendency, among the subjects who found their current residences ideal, the number of those who would not move was significantly larger than the others, while among the subjects who did not find their residences ideal, those who would not move was only slightly larger than those who would. Generally speaking, among all the subjects in this study, the number of those who would not move was significantly larger than those who would. Apparently, there is a significant connection between the subjects¡¦ opinions about the current residences and their moving tendency. For those subject who wanted to move even if they found their current residences ideal, the reasons could be divided into four aspects: the buildings, the natural environments, human factors and financial factors. The major reasons which stop the subjects from moving in this study were the financial factors, jobs of the families members, schooling of the family members and lack of spouse support. Among all the subjects, 70% thought they had found their ideal residences or believed they would in the future. The subjects¡¦ personal requirements of an ideal residence included employment opportunities, cultural activities, quality of nearby schools and religious beliefs while their environmental requirements were scenic view, interactions with friends, relatives and family members, living space and related facilities. For those subjects who found their current residences in the urban and downtown areas satisfactory, the environmental and personal requirements were almost equally importance while for the rest of the subjects, the environmental requirements were more important than the personal ones. According to the findings of this research, it is suggested that the social care and welfare policies should be accordingly adjusted as the elder population increases while many retired elders will move to apartments or care houses which offer special care instead of living with their children. Secondly, this study also finds that more and more people are moving to the suburban areas, forming a consuming force that might be as equally worthy of attention as that in the urban areas. Thirdly, among the subjects who found ideal residences in the urban areas and middle-size cities, their personal requirements and environmental requirements of an ideal residence are almost equally important. However, among those subjects who preferred suburban areas, the countryside and small towns, the environmental requirements are more important than the personal requirements. Therefore, it is suggested that there should be more natural landscapes for residents in the urban areas while more efforts should be invested in preserving the natural environments in the suburban areas. Fourthly, as the elder population expands, the government should establish more institutions or facilities of medical care, social service, finance and transportation in the suburban areas where more and more retired elder will reside in the future. Fifthly, the government should provide policies which encourage citizens to have financial plans for their life after retirement while the enterprises should provide the employees with well-designed pension policies so that people can be economically carefree and move to their ideal residences if possible after retirement. Finally,the care of elders in each community is a very important issue in Taiwan.

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The powerful influence of global consumerism and its strong effect on rural communities has led to calls for the “death of distance” and for the placelessness of community. However, skepticism remains that all unique elements of communities of place have been erased from rural life. Using data from Montana (N=3,508), this research investigates how distance, size, and other spatially-bound factors influence sentiments of community satisfaction and attachment in communities of place. Findings suggest that distance can decrease community satisfaction in highly rural communities and increase attachment in rural communities along the urban fringe. Perceived satisfaction with community services was a key unanticipated finding as the strongest predictor of community satisfaction and attachment. Therefore, this research argues that even though rural areas are being transformed through global consumerism, levels of community satisfaction and attachment continue to be diverse across place in significant but nuanced ways because of distance and community services.

With Internet access and use becoming nearly ubiquitous aspects of an individual’s experience of everyday life, sociologists must consider how the Internet is transforming an individual's experience of community. This study examines the connections between place-independent forms of social capital actuated online, place-dependent forms of social capital actuated face-to-face, and individuals' perceptions of community attachment and community satisfaction. Moving from a theoretical foundation to empirical evidence, I show the concepts of bonding and bridging social capital can and should be divided based upon the medium through which they are actuated. I then explore the effect of online and offline forms of bonding and bridging social capital on individuals' perceptions of community attachment and community satisfaction. Based on data from 52 communities in Montana, collected in 2012, the results indicate that a significant distinction exists between online and offline social capital and that online social capital is capable, to a limited degree, of ameliorating some of the consequences of geographic isolation, or distance, experienced by many residents of rural communities. The results also indicate that while online actuations of social capital are statistically and substantively important in explaining individuals' perceptions of community, offline actuations of social capital are associated with larger substantive impacts on individuals' perceptions of community attachment and community satisfaction, suggesting that while online social capital is an important part of how individuals experience community, face-to-face, or offline actuations of social capital are more important in determining how individuals perceive the geographically fixed communities in which they reside.

There is a growing recognition that to more fully understand the complex dynamics of neighborhoods and communities, we must effectively link the micro- and macro-level dimensions of community processes. As important as collective efficacy at the macro level has been shown to be, literature looking at factors shaping the individual-level experience is relatively scarce. Since the latent community attribute of collective efficacy is largely measured as a function of individual perceptions, understanding what affects the individual is vital, especially in light of within-neighborhood heterogeneity. In this study, I use insights from social disorganization theory, the systemic model to community attachment, and a life-course perspective in order to examine why age is associated with perceptions of collective efficacy. Utilizing Wave 1 L.A.FANS data (N=2,619), results show that age is positively associated with perceptions of collective efficacy, but that this relationship is indirect, with plans to move as the key mediator between age and perceptions of collective efficacy. Surprisingly, other factors linked to social disorganization theory and the systemic model of community attachment are not important for explaining the age relationship. Overall, this study takes the next step at identifying significant predictors of individual perceptions of collective efficacy both from the structural macro-level perspective and the individual micro-level perspective. Additionally, this analysis adds another urban context to the literature by analyzing Los Angeles County, a distinct area from those most looked at in previous studies.

Most sociological analyses of community attachment have focused on the strength of attachment, with little concern for the qualities or attributes of a place to which people become attached. In cases where dimensions of attachment are the focus of analysis, the literature is rather narrowly focused on social dimensions, re ferring most often to connections with family, friends, and other social networks and largely ignoring the realm of natural environment factors. Two primary premises motivated this study. Fi rst, sociological understandi ngs of community attachment wou ld benefit from an expanded analytic framework that incorporates more complex arrays of both social and natural environment dimensions. Second, it is important to understand what variations in attachment may mean for the broader well-being of rural communities. Initial analyses of the data demonstrated four key results. First, factor analysis of fi fleen indicators of attachment produced two distinct dimensions of community attachment, social and natural environment. Second, the nature of the response patterns indicates that strength of natural environment attachment is widely shared amongst a variety of res idents, regardless of length of residence, historical roots to the area, or life cycle. Third, participation in collective action and perceptions of open communication (measures of well-being) within a respondent's community explained only a small portion of the variance in both social and natural environment attachment. Fourth, Structural Equation Modeling demonstrated that there is a causal relationship between attachment and community well-being, though that relationship appeared to be non-recursive. In contrast to much of the previous empirical work on community attachment, this research provides strong evidence of the natural environment dimension and provides justification for further research. This research provides one model to be considered and expanded upon in future research efforts in this area, and supports the need for further attention to the use of multiple dimensions of attachment and their associations with community well-being.

<p>Black Americans living in rural regions of the U.S. are an underserved and under-researched population in the mental health field. Health and wellness disparities in Black populations are consistently documented as far worse than in White populations. Yet, the effects of low density of Black people living in predominantly White rural communities is unknown to mental health professionals and researchers alike. This study aimed to fill gaps in the literature concerning effects of Black density and city population on community attachment, place attachment, and subjective well-being, as well as community and place attachment’s effects on subjective well-being. Using a secondary dataset titled Soul of the Community [in 26 Knight Foundation Communities in the United States] (Gallup International, Inc., 2009), it was discovered that Black density alone had no significant relationships with any other variables, but the interaction of Black density and city population negatively predicted place attachment. In addition, community and place attachment both positively predicted subjective well-being. These results indicate that where people live matters and has a significant impact on their attachment to their physical surroundings. In addition, one’s connection to community and place are vital contributors to subjective well-being. Clinical implications can be drawn from this study pointing to the importance of clinical awareness regarding rurality, racial density, and community and place attachment. Moreover, clinicians can assess for these factors in the therapy room and encourage clients to explore their own communities.</p>

The growth of high-speed internet access in rural communities is a relatively recent event. In this study, I contribute to the literature regarding the internet and local community by analyzing the influence of internet activity on community experience, measured through community satisfaction and attachment, using the systemic model as controls. After surveying 24 rural communities in Utah, USA once in 2008 and again in 2017, I find a negative association between community experience and increased use of the internet for informational purposes. While my models find mixed findings that community experience has decreased over time in rural areas, I find evidence that internet activity can affect community experience, strengthening arguments that researchers should control for more than mere internet access. Due to the associations between internet activities and community experience, I argue that rural policymakers should find place-based ways to strengthen community experience.

This study examines the impact of the Internet on rural community satisfaction, attachment and overall experience. With the geographic dispersion of social networks, the majority of the population has a greater need for long-distance social networking. The Internet has the potential to mitigate distance and connect social networks much faster than letter writing or face-to-face visits. While the Internet is available, to at least some extent, in rural communities in Utah, does it positively affect overall perceptions of community life? This study finds that this is not the case. There is a negative relationship between Internet use and community satisfaction and overall community experience. However, this study also finds that the type of Internet access available within the home has a positive effect on community attachment and overall community experience. The Internet is thus an important element of rural community life and should not be overlooked.