Belgium and the Netherlands: Two Different Ways of Coping with the Housing Crisis, 1945–70

ABSTRACT

Belgium and the Netherlands are very different in their spatial outlook and in the way housing is organized. In Belgium individual private dwellings predominate whereas in the Netherlands social housing and planned neighborhoods are much more common. This article aims at unraveling the histories and sensibilities that led to this situation. It argues that the well-known diverging histories of architecture and urbanism make up only one explanation, which needs to be complemented by understanding the different processes of mediation between producers and consumers adopted by both countries. In tackling the postwar housing crisis, Belgium chose to stimulate private initiative by providing tax incentives for home builders. The Netherlands, on the other, hand mitigated the housing crisis by planning new estates of social housing, using new techniques of prefabrication that led to standardized flats. In the Netherlands the process of mediation, oriented towards “correct living,” was dominated by a national organization, which resolutely advocated modernist design as the most rational way to organize the home. In Belgium the task of mediation was taken up by “pillarized” social organizations rather than by a national institution. This resulted in a much stronger bottom-up influence from ordinary dwellers, who convinced their organizations to soften the modernist approach in favor of more traditionally inspired homes and interiors. The Belgian way of organizing home cultures thus came to resemble much more an “American way of living” than its Dutch counterpart—contradicting the prevailing literature that tends to stress the Americanization of Dutch culture while ignoring such patterns in Belgium.     

Geographic Migration Among Residents in Seniors Housing and Care Communities: Evidence From the Residents Financial Survey

ABSTRACT

Although the elderly as a while show relatively little geographic migration in the U.S., we were interested in the geographic migration patterns among a specific subset of elderly that we know have moved out of the traditional family home—those living in assisted living and independent living communities. We analyze data from the Residents Financial Survey, a survey of 2,617 residents in assisted living and independent living communities that asked about their previous living arrangement, where they lived before moving to their current community, and how their care needs were previously met. We find there is substantial migration among respondents. Using self-reported and community-reported location and zip code information, we calculated whether people moved across state lines and we computed the distance people moved between their previous location and their current community. While the median distance moved is less than 10 miles, 20% moved across state lines and 21% of the sample moved more than 100 miles, with the average distance moved among the sample being 165 to 190 miles. The evolution of living arrangements shows that there are strong correlations among respondents' current living arrangements, previous living arrangements, and their plan to move in the future.     

Local Environment of Neighborhood Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCs) in a Mid-Sized U.S. City

As the U.S. population ages, almost half of elderly householders have lived in their current home for more than 20 years, and a significant majority wish to remain in their current residence or community for as long as possible as they age. Concern with how communities will cope with these trends has led to a growing interest in naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs), which are neighborhoods or housing complexes that house a concentration of older adults, and their potential to enhance efforts to support aging-in-place. In this article, we examine the local built and social environment of neighborhood NORCs in Tallahassee, Florida, a low-density mid-sized city. We found that a large proportion of NORCs are located in neighborhoods with an urban form, or physical design, that is presumed to be less supportive of active aging, and associated with poor access to amenities, such as grocery stores, pharmacies, and parks. Another substantial portion of NORCs are located in neighborhoods with some aspects of a supportive urban form. We also found that NORCs are over-represented in neighborhoods featuring low residential turnover and above average homeownership rates. This suggests a potential for collective action to facilitate aging-in-place, even in neighborhoods thought not to have supportive physical environments.     

Community Context,Social Integration Into Family,and Youth Violence

The purpose of this study is to analyze the extent to which neighborhood‐level family structure and feelings of family integration are associated with acts of violence among 16,910 adolescents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The results from our hierarchical linear models indicate that adolescents who live in neighborhoods with lower proportions of single‐parent families and who report higher levels of family integration commit less violence. We also find that neighborhood‐level family structure shapes the extent to which social integration into family matters: In neighborhoods that are considered higher risk environments (i.e., contain greater proportions of single‐parent families), family integration is often less effective in deterring youth violence than it is in lower risk environments.     

Building an Integrated Research/Policy Planning Age-Friendly Agenda

This article describes an innovative model for integrating research into a policy and planning agenda aimed to help neighborhoods become more supportive of older adults. Philadelphia Corporation for Aging (PCA) established Age-Friendly Philadelphia (AFP) to catalyze efforts to improve the physical and social environments for seniors. The Research Program at PCA became an important part of this effort by providing multiple types of supports to PCA staff and other stakeholders. Most notably, the research program worked with planners to adopt the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Aging Initiative model for Philadelphia. That model focuses on (1) staying active, connected, and engaged; (2) development and housing; (3) transportation and mobility; and (4) staying healthy. Examples of practice efforts actualized using this research are also presented. By developing a new approach to the way research can support practice initiatives, AFP has been able to increase its effectiveness, and researchers have found better ways to work collaboratively with professionals in policy, planning, and practice. The PCA model should be considered as a framework for similar efforts aimed at creating age-friendly communities.     

A latent class analysis of resilient development among early adolescents living in public housing

The aim of this study was to identify types of early adolescents living in public housing neighborhoods based on patterns of resilient development. Informed by ecological-transactional theory, we evaluated a broad range of individual, relational, and contextual influences on resilient development among an ethnically diverse sample of 315 early adolescents (M_age = 12; 51% female) living in public housing neighborhoods. Results of a latent class analysis of 11 indicators and 2 outcome variables suggest three empirically derived classes representing overall patterns of favorable and unfavorable behavior. Daily hassles, low neighborhood cohesion, and a relaxed attitude towards substance use corresponded with a higher probability of substance use and delinquency. Significant differences in favorable behavior patterns reflecting resilient development between classes were found in attitudes towards substance use, academic efficacy, and school commitment. Results suggest important implications for preventive interventions for early adolescents living in public housing neighborhoods that are discussed.     

The Difficult History of Ancillary Units: The Obstacles and Potential Opportunities to Increase the Heterogeneity of Neighborhoods and the Flexibility of Households in the United States

ABSTRACT

Most aging Americans express the desire to stay in their current home for the rest of their lives. However, as literature and practice indicate, aging in place cannot be successfully achieved in all places, especially in those places where zoning regulations and building codes act as barriers to the flexible adaptation of environments. One possible solution could come from the legalization of what is commonly known as granny flats, or more technically as Ancillary Dwelling Units. This article is divided into three parts. The first part is a brief history of Ancillary Dwelling Units. The second part focuses on the critical role played by local and state urban planning policies in the future of Ancillary Dwelling Units. California is used as a noteworthy example. The third part discusses how positive outcomes for senior residents who have Ancillary Dwelling Units legally present in their neighborhoods are linked to the appropriateness of their design.     

Applying a Treatment Effects Model to Investigate Public Amenity Effect on Physical Activity of the Elderly

The increasing elderly population puts significant health, economic, and social burdens on society. Physical activity is one of the most cost-effective ways to maintain the health of the elderly. This study adopts a treatment effects model to investigate the causal relationship between environment attributes and physical activity among the elderly, while taking endogeneity into account. The data were collected from 274 participants by face-to-face interviews in Taichung, Taiwan. Performing physical activity regularly in parks is the most important measure of the amount of physical activity by the elderly. Providing sufficient and accessible parks in metropolitan residential neighborhoods could be one of the most cost-effective ways to promote physical activity for the elderly living in midsize Asian cities.     

Understanding the social and cultural bases of Brexit*

We use data from a large scale and nationally representative survey to evaluate two narratives about the social bases of Brexit. The first narrative sees Brexit as a revolt of the economically left-behinds. The second narrative attributes Brexit to the resurgence of an English nationalism. There is some, albeit not always consistent, evidence that people in relative poverty or those living in areas that have seen greater Chinese import penetration are slightly more pro-Leave. People living in economically deprived neighborhoods are not more pro-Brexit. Using the Weberian class–status distinction, it is social status, not social class, which stratifies Brexit support. Individuals for whom being British is important are more pro-Leave. But those who see themselves as British rather than English, and those reporting omnivorous cultural consumption are less supportive of Brexit. Overall, there is empirical support for both narratives. But the weight of the evidence suggests a strong cultural dimension in Brexit support.     

Suburbanizing the City

Abstract

Urban planners and city officials have considered various strategies to lure the middle class back to the central city — including urban renewal programs and historic preservation. A neglected alternative is to build suburban style housing downtown. Residents of a ranch-style condominium development in downtown Indianapolis were asked about their backgrounds, reasons for moving, and reactions to their new neighborhood. The results were compared with similar data from two nearby historic districts. Suburban style housing seems to draw new types of people downtown — e.g., wealthier, less skilled at exterior repairs, previously living a little further out from the city center. It seems unsuccessful in attracting young couples with children, however, and the prospects for duplicating this type of project on a large scale seem limited Recent buyers of historic homes expressed less initial satisfaction with their neighborhoods, but the presence of restoration activity was important in stimulating the townhouse buyers' interest in downtown living.     

Elderly People's Perceptions of a Telehealthcare System: Relative Advantage,Compatibility, Complexity and Observability

The use of telehealthcare systems to promote independent living for elderly people is growing. The results presented in this article, derived from an initial user lab test of a telecare system—GiraffPlus—indicate that the crucial factor for adoption of telehealthcare systems is not usability but the system's ability to support autonomy in everyday life. Eleven users tested the usability and reported what they perceived as possible benefits of having such a system at home. To support autonomy, customization is crucial for the system to be perceived as meaningful for the individual. Our analysis confirms previous research.     

Disproportionality and Resource‐Based Environmental Inequality: An Analysis of Neighborhood Proximity to Coal Impoundments in Appalachia

Environmental hazards created by resource extraction impose numerous risks on rural populations, but have been understudied in quantitative analyses of environmental inequality. This study fills that gap by examining whether neighborhoods with socioeconomic disadvantages are disproportionately proximate to coal impoundments in Appalachia. Coal impoundments are large, hazardous dams that hold billions of gallons of wastewater and slurry, a sludge‐like by‐product of processing coal. I ground this study in William Freudenburg's double diversion framework, which highlights “disproportionality”—the unequal trade‐off between economic benefits and environmental costs of certain industries. Disproportionality is evident in Appalachia, where coal mining makes up a small percentage of the region's jobs, but threatens local communities through the creation of environmental hazards. Spatial regression results indicate that neighborhoods closest to impoundments are slightly more likely to have higher rates of poverty and unemployment, even after controlling for rurality, mining‐related variables, and spatial dependence. The findings also suggest that a neighborhood's proximity to past mining activity is a stronger predictor of impoundment proximity than current levels of mining employment. This article lays the groundwork for future research on resource‐based environmental inequality that considers the uneven spatial distribution of hazards created by resource extraction.     

Learning from tradition: the planning of residential neighborhoods in a changing world

This paper analyses the community values of residential neighborhoods in the southwestern region of Saudi Arabia as an approach to a new theory in urbanism. The indigenous masterbuilders and tribemen incorporated planning decisions pertinent to climatic, cultural, social, economic and religious factors when designing physical elements in their built environment. This is what makes every traditional settlement in the southwest region of Saudi Arabia unique in terms of urban form and social structure. As a step to examining and evaluating the process of residential neighborhood development, three stages of practiced urbanism are discussed. These stages are labelled “vernacular”, “transitional” and “new vernacularism”. These are planning concepts used worldwide in the development of residential neighborhoods throughout history until the present. “New Vernacularism” is envisioned in this investigation as a design/planning objective implemented in most recently planned neighborhoods in Al-Horaidhah, Southwest Saudi Arabia. The achievement of successful urbanism underlies the political goals of urban planning practice. The Al-Horaidhah planning concept is conceived in the light of preservation of community values in neighborhood design/planning as a critical issue.The paper aims to investigate and reconcile the conflicts in the planning of residential neighborhoods in a changing world. The conflicts are restricted between retaining traditions of architecture, urban design and planning with the necessary social, economic, and technological changes in urban formation, mainly, the vernacular and modern. The paper illustrates the concept “New Vernacularism” by presenting Al-Horaidhah scheme as a model for community development in three administrative regions along the Red Sea coastline. “New Vernacularism” as a planning concept looks at the community development in Al-Horaidhah in the light of Sharicah, the Islamic Law and Customary norms by emphasizing the importance of the involvement of local residents in the planning process and gives suggestions of how this might best be achieved and later implemented into new communities.     

Wall Street Scandals: The Myth of Individual Greed1

There is rarely an introductory text in sociology that does not begin with C. Wright Mills’s (1967) distinction between personal troubles and structural or public issues. To lack sociological imagination is to confuse between these two levels of analysis in trying to explain public issues in terms of personal troubles, or history in terms of the individual’s biography. “Troubles occur within the character of the individual and within the range of his immediate relations with others; Issues have to do with matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the range of his inner life” ( Mills, 1967:8 ). Issues are generated in response to the dynamics of the social system and unfold within the larger structural and historical contexts where the character of the individual takes shape. Yet, the most popular explanation of the contemporary financial crisis with its disastrous social and economic consequences is personal greed. It is the greedy investment bankers, corrupt politicians, and unscrupulous lobbyists who are to take the brunt of the current economic meltdown in the United States. A few bad apples on Wall Street have created havoc on Main Street. Here, one may argue that greed that—if not kept in check—which seems to afflict almost everyone, transcending social class and status boundaries, may be a public issue—a structural problem—rather than a problem within the character of the individual. Not to be greedy within the contemporary social and economic system may be considered pathological, an instance of personal trouble.     

Exploring the Social Construction of Crime by Neighborhood: News Coverage of Crime in Boston

ABSTRACT

Information disseminated by the news shapes the way that the public perceives criminal events, often providing a distorted view of crime. Previous research has largely overlooked neighborhoods in discussions of how the news portrays crime. This study examines the ways that the news media report the neighborhoods in which homicides, robberies, and assaults are committed. Multiple theoretical perspectives rooted in the law of opposites and racial typification provide differing explanations for the reporting of crime. Using Boston as a test site, this study employs a content analysis of The Boston Globe crime articles to identify the neighborhoods in which instances of homicide, robbery, and assault receive coverage. A comparison with official crime data from the Boston Police Department suggests differences in neighborhood reporting trends for robbery and assault but not for homicide. Specifically, the news media tend to disproportionately report more robberies and assaults in neighborhoods with lower levels of neighborhood disadvantage. Implications for the social construction of crime and neighborhoods as well as criminal justice response for disadvantaged neighborhoods are discussed.     

A multilingual approach to analysing standardized test results: immigrant primary school children and the role of languages spoken in a bi-/multilingual community

The present study adopts a multilingual approach to analysing the standardized test results of primary school immigrant children living in the bi-/multilingual context of South Tyrol, Italy. The standardized test results are from the Invalsi test administered across Italy in 2009/2010. In South Tyrol, several languages are spoken on a daily basis and the long-established ethnic groups are speakers of German (69%), Italian (26%) and Ladin (4%). While the language of instruction for immigrant children attending Italian language schools is Italian, these children live in Italian- or German-speaking environments. I argue that standardized testing data should be analysed in conjunction with local language information to better serve the educational needs of bi-/multilingual children. The Italian test results of I and II Generation immigrant children (n?=?225) are re-examined in light of the languages spoken in their living environment. Results show that the approach used is useful in identifying information that would have otherwise remained undetected. The additional data provide valuable input for school administrators, educators and policy-makers and can be used to devise suitable remedial measures for immigrant children attending school in bi-/multilingual environments.     

Measuring Differences in Living Standards Within Households

This article presents a quantitative approach used to investigate differences in living standards between spouses within households. Adopting a specially adapted, standard poverty measurement approach—nonmonetary indicators—it explores differences between spouses in terms of possessions and access to certain goods and services and the control and management of household resources. Using data from a unique module in the Living in Ireland Survey (N = 2,248 individuals) as an exemplar, the article focuses on 3 methodological issues: (a) the development of specially designed nonmonetary indicators to explore differences in living standards within households rather than between households (including the role played by qualitative findings in developing those indicators and how focus groups were used to assess and validate the method), (b) the use of multivariate analysis to assess the impact of a wife's independent income in ameliorating differences in living standards between spouses, and (c) the deployment of a mechanism for use in quantitative surveys to record spousal presence and allow measurement of any subsequent difference in individual responses.     

Resurgent Ethnicity among Asian Americans: Ethnic Neighborhood Context and Health

In this study I investigate the associations of neighborhood socioeconomic and social environments with the health of Asian Americans living in both Asian ethnic neighborhoods and non-Asian neighborhoods. I use a sample of 1962 Asian Americans from the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS, 2003-04). Three key findings emerge. First, absolute levels of socioeconomic and social resources do not differ greatly between the Asian ethnic neighborhoods and non-Asian neighborhoods in which Asian Americans live. Second, the ethnic neighborhood context conditions the effects of neighborhood education on health so that higher neighborhood education is related to better self-rated health among Asian Americans only when they live in Asian ethnic neighborhoods. Finally, the social environment, measured by everyday discrimination and social cohesion, does not differ in its health effects for individuals living in Asian ethnic and non-Asian neighborhoods. Together, these findings illuminate the complex ways that racial and ethnic neighborhood concentration impacts health.     

Future Planning and Financial Education Needs for Asset Building Among Persons with Multiple Sclerosis in Rural Areas

Abstract

This paper presents findings from a study of individuals with multiple sclerosis examining their planning and preparation activities for their future independent living and long-term care needs. Data collected from a representative sample of National Multiple Sclerosis Society members in the greater metropolitan St. Louis and eastern Illinois area indicate significant differences in income, assets, education, health and functional limitation status between individuals living in rural versus urban areas. Additionally, findings show respondents with greater levels of education and assets, and those living in urban areas, are more likely to have saved for retirement, made legal preparations, or engaged in planning activities for future needs. Recommendations for asset building programs include incorporating education and training on planning for independent living and long-term care into financial planning curriculum, particularly for people with multiple sclerosis living in rural areas.     

The Impact of Bandung City's Rapid Development on children's Independent Mobility and Access to Friendly Play Environments

This study explored the extent to which the enormous development in Bandung City, Indonesia has some bearing on local children as the youngest inhabitants. In particular, it focused on the issue of children's independent mobility and the availability of friendly play environments in children's neighbourhoods. The result of this study showed that the development of Bandung City has created a disparity in access regarding children's opportunities for mobility as well as participation in friendly play environments. This study identified that many children were allowed to visit two places — local shops and the local mosque — without accompanying elders. This study also recognised children's desires to have appropriately designed play spaces, such as parks that are equipped with play equipment and rich in nature. Thus, this study argues the necessity to preserve the remaining and add a significant number of new, free, outdoor play spaces in the city.