China has experienced the rapid socioeconomic change that leads to the
evolution of social and physical environment in urban neighborhoods. In recently built
neighborhoods, residents lack mutual trust and a sense of community; the neighborhood
open spaces have been improved but still do not function well for developing resident
social capital.
Social capital is a comprehensive concept for evaluating community
development. The purpose of this study was to evaluate residents social capital in
ChinaÂs urban context and to examine the relationships between social capital and
neighborhood open spaces. The review of literature identified five interpersonal factors
of social capital: social network, trust, security and safety, belongingness, and
engagement, which were related to neighborhood physical environment.
In the city of Guangzhou, two neighborhoods were selected as study fields and two hundred and fifty subjects were randomly selected in each neighborhood to
participate in a questionnaire survey. More than 75% subjects returned questionnaires.
Ten residents of them then participated in semi-structured interviews. Observation
recorded residents activities in open spaces. Data were analyzed by statistical methods
and domain analysis strategy.
The results of statistical examinations demonstrated that residents living with a
large number of neighborhood open spaces had higher degrees of social capital than
residents lacking open spaces; residents using open spaces frequently developed higher
degrees of social capital than residents using open spaces less; residents who were
satisfied with their open spaces held higher degrees of social capital than those who were
not satisfied with open spaces.
Semi-structured interviews explained that well-designed open spaces attracted
inhabitants to participate in outdoor activities, which encouraged social interaction
among residents, enhanced their mutual trust, expanded social network, and strengthened
belongingness to neighborhood. However, open spaces were found not to obviously
improve resident engagement. Observations unveiled that a highly versatile and flexible
outdoor space was the favorite place for residents of all ages.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/3838 |
| Date | 16 August 2006 |
| Creators | Kang, Bin |
| Contributors | Abrams, Robin F. |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | 5363021 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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