This article contributes both to the expanding literature on the effect of school choice and to the literature focusing on how to measure and conceptualize neighborhood effects. It uses a novel approach to the measurement of geographical context to analyze neighborhood influences on school choice attitudes among Swedish parents. Data on attitudes come from a survey of 3,749 families with children in upper primary school. Geographical context is measured using multi-scalar contextual factors based on socioeconomic indicators for individually defined, bespoke neighborhoods that incorporate from 12 to 12,800 people. The results show that parental motives for choosing schools in Sweden are strongly influenced by the social and ethnic composition of their own and their adjacent neighborhoods. Contrary to most other studies, we find effects of socioeconomic context stronger than the effects of the parents' own social and ethnic background. Thus, parents living in academic, high-income areas put little stress on attending an assigned school, close-to-home schools, or stating that the municipality has influenced their decision. Furthermore, these attitudes become even stronger if nearby neighborhoods are dominated by visible minorities and disadvantaged groups. Supported by Sampson's ideas of coordinated perceptions among inhabitants in the same neighborhoods, we explain these surprisingly strong contextual effects with the idea that school choice motives are especially sensitive to neighbors' ideas and easily influenced as measured preferences in a survey.Este artículo contribuye a la creciente literatura sobre el efecto de la selección de escuela y a la literatura que se enfoca en cómo medir y conceptualizar los efectos de la vecindad. Se utiliza un enfoque novedoso para la medición del contexto geográfico en el análisis de las influencias del vecindario sobre las actitudes relacionadas con la selección de la escuela entre los padres de familia suecos. Los datos sobre las actitudes provienen de un estudio de 3.749 familias cuyos niños se encontraban en el grado superior de la escuela primaria. El contexto geográfico se mide por medio de factores contextuales multi-escalares basados en indicadores socioeconómicos para vecindarios a la medida [bespoke neighborhoods], definidos individualmente y, que incorporan entre 12 y 12.800 personas. Los resultados muestran que los motivos de los padres para seleccionar las escuelas en Suecia están fuertemente influidos por la composición social yétnica del propio vecindario y la de los vecindarios adyacentes. Al contrario de lo que ocurre en la mayoría de otros estudios, encontramos que los efectos del contexto socioeconómico eran más fuertes que los efectos de los propios antecedentes sociales yétnicos de los padres. Así, los padres que viven enáreas académicas de alto ingreso ponen menos estrés por asistir a una escuela asignada, porque las escuelas sean cercanas al hogar, o en culpar a la municipalidad por influir en sus decisiones. 870Malmberg, Andersson, and Bergsten Adicionalm...

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BackgroundConcerns about loss of greenspace with urbanisation motivate much research on nature and health; however, contingency of greenspace-health associations on the character of community change remains understudied.MethodsWith aggregate data from governmental sources for 1432 Swedish parishes, we used negative binomial regression to estimate incidence rate ratios (IRRs) for all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality during 2000–2008 in relation to percentage area (in 2000) of urban residential greenspace, urban parks and rural greenspace, looking across parishes with decrease, stability or increase in population density. We also assessed interactions between land use and population change.ResultsParishes with >1 decile increase in population density had lower incidence of all-cause (IRR=0.91, 95% CI 0.87 to 0.95) and CVD mortality (IRR=0.89, 95% CI 0.84 to 0.94) compared with parishes with stable populations. In stable parishes, all-cause mortality was lower with higher percentages of urban green (IRR=0.998, 95% CI 0.996 to 1.000) and rural green land uses (IRR=0.997, 95% CI 0.996 to 0.999). These results were inverted in densifying parishes; higher all-cause mortality attended higher initial percentages of urban (IRR=1.081, 95% CI 1.037 to 1.127) and rural greenspace (IRR=1.042, 95% CI 1.007 to 1.079) as measured in 2000. Similar associations held for CVD mortality.ConclusionsMore greenspace was associated with lower all-cause and CVD mortality in communities with relatively stable populations. In densifying communities, population growth per se may reduce mortality, but it may also entail harm through reductions in amount per capita and/or quality of greenspace.