Self‐defined residential neighbourhoods: size variations and correlates across five European urban regions

Abstract

SummaryThe neighbourhood is recognized as an important unit of analysis in research on the relation between obesogenic environments and development of obesity. One important challenge is to define the limits of the residential neighbourhood, as perceived by study participants themselves, in order to improve our understanding of the interaction between contextual features and patterns of obesity. An innovative tool was developed in the framework of the SPOTLIGHT project to identify the boundaries of neighbourhoods as defined by participants in five European urban regions. The aims of this study were (i) to describe self-defined neighbourhood (size and overlap with predefined residential area) according to the characteristics of the sampling administrative neighbourhoods (residential density and socioeconomic status) within the five study regions and (ii) to determine which individual or/and environmental factors are associated with variations in size of self-defined neighbourhoods. Self-defined neighbourhood size varies according to both individual factors (age, educational level, length of residence and attachment to neighbourhood) and contextual factors. These findings have consequences for how residential neighbourhoods are defined and operationalized and can inform how self-defined neighbourhoods may be used in research on associations between contextual characteristics and health outcomes such as obesity.

Mismatch between perceived and objectively measured environmental obesogenic features in European neighbourhoods

“…Because there is a potential discrepancy between self‐defined and predefined neighbourhoods, the extent of overlap was determined. The respondents were asked to draw the boundary of their self‐defined neighbourhood using an online self‐mapping tool developed for this purpose (or a printout when using a paper version of the questionnaire) . Using ArcGiS, version 10.1, software (Environmental System Research Institute, ESRI, Redlands, California) , all neighbourhood geographical coordinate points were recorded and combined to form an enclosed area (polygon boundaries) representing the self‐defined neighbourhood.…”

Is accessibility in the eye of the beholder? Social inequalities in spatial accessibility to health-related resources in Montréal, Canada

“…In fact, compared to their higher SES counterparts, lower SES groups had worse experience-based accessibility for 10 of the 12 health-related resources studied. This reflects, in part, the positive social gradient observed for the size of self-defined neighbourhoods, with higher SES participants reporting larger neighbourhoods than lower SES participants -as has also been observed in American (Coulton et al, 2013;Sastry et al, 2002) and European cities (Charreire et al, 2016) -and may also have to do with differences in neighbourhood shape (von Stülpnagel et al, 2019), an issue that was beyond the scope of this study.…”

“…Self-defined neighbourhoods, however, remain under-studied in quantitative research since the tight interrelationships between individuals and contexts are not easy to capture (Cummins et al, 2007). In the few cases where such studies have been performed, they have largely focused on how self-defined neighbourhoods (sometimes called 'perceived neighbourhoods') differ in size and shape from standard census units and according to population subgroups and urban form (Charreire et al, 2016;. Is accessibility in the eye of the beholder?…”

Exploring Spatial Patterns of Guardianship Through Civic Technology Platforms

“…There is a whole area of research focusing on the impact of using different area geographies to represent neighbourhoods (Brunton-Smith, Sutherland, & Jackson, 2013;Hipp, 2010a;Manley, Flowerdew, & Steel, 2006;Rengert & Lockwood, 2009;Weisburd et al, 2009;Wikstrom, Ceccato, Hardie, & Treiber, 2010). For example, whether neighbourhood satisfaction covariates were measured at local micro-neighbourhood level, or larger census tract level had an effect on the results, indicating that people consider their immediate environment, rather than the census tract when asked about 'neighbourhood' (Hipp, 2010b) But a particular challenge for the study of people's activity patterns is to define the limits of 'neighbourhood', as perceived by study participants themselves (Charreire et al, 2016).…”