Associations between neighborhood environment and sense of community belonging in urban China: Examining mediation effects of neighborly interactions and community satisfaction

Improving sense of community belonging (SCB) would help people live longer, happier lives. Although the importance of neighborhood environment on SCB is stressed in the literature, few studies have paid attention to perceived environment, as well as consider mediation effects such as neighborhood so...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in public health 2023-01, Vol.10, p.1105473-1105473
Main Authors: Du, Yang, Jiang, Huaxiong, Huang, Zhuo, Yang, Haoran
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
China
community belonging
Humans
neighborhood design
Personal Satisfaction
Public Health
Residence Characteristics
Social Cohesion
structural equation modeling (SEM)
urban China
walkability
Walking
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Summary:Improving sense of community belonging (SCB) would help people live longer, happier lives. Although the importance of neighborhood environment on SCB is stressed in the literature, few studies have paid attention to perceived environment, as well as consider mediation effects such as neighborhood social interactions and place satisfaction. Relied on a sample of 1051 respondents in Shanghai in 2018, this study investigates the associations between both objective and perceived neighborhood environment attributes and SCB in urban China, mediated by neighborly interactions and community satisfaction using structural equation modeling. The results suggest that the influence of perceived neighborhood environment on SCB is more prominent than that of objective neighborhood environment. In detail, perceived pedestrian facilities and perceived leisure facilities are vital to SCB, while among objective neighborhood environmental elements, the influence of land use entropy, park density and street greenery are significant. Then, neighborhood environmental attributes can influence SCB by affecting neighborly interactions and community satisfaction. We also identify gender differences in the effects of neighborhood environment upon SCB. Given increasing awareness of the connection, neighborhood environment may prove to be valuable assets to improve individuals' psychosocial constructs such as SCB.
ISSN:2296-2565
2296-2565
DOI:10.3389/fpubh.2022.1105473