Environment and Behavior

Neighborhood revitalization efforts include building new subdivisions in declining neighborhoods, but few studies have asked the incoming residents about the success of such new housing efforts. We examined neighborhood confidence and place attachment among residents of such a new housing subdivision (n = 56) and compared them to newcomers (n = 99) and old-timers (n = 271) in the surrounding neighborhood. The new subdivision attracted comparatively wealthy, married, home owning residents. Compared with residents in the surrounding neighborhood, new subdivision residents had more neighborhood confidence, especially those who perceived few incivilities and satisfactory neighborhood services. Subdivision newcomers had higher place attachments than newcomers to the surrounding neighborhood and as high attachments as old-timers in the surrounding neighborhood. Although largely attracted by affordable housing, new subdivision residents may become important neighborhood contributors, given their levels of place attachment and confidence.

The aim of this study is to examine the spread and determinants of fear of crime in Italy. A secondary analysis was performed on the 1995 Italian National Statistics Institute data (Italian representative sample: 19,785 participants). In addition, data from official judicial statistics were analyzed. Main results are as follows: (a) fear of crime correlates with crime spread; (b) fear of crime is more widespread than crime itself; (c) the best predictors of fear of crime are urbanization, degradation of residential areas, and residence in Northeastern Italy; (d) criminal victimization exerts a minor influence on fear of crime; and (e) sociodemographic variables under investigation exert little influence on fear of crime. These results are discussed in reference to international literature, and possible subsequent lines of research are suggested.

Three experiments investigated the route-angularity effect, which is demonstrated when a greater number of turns along a route increases the estimated length. So far, a route-angularity effect has not been demonstrated in school-age children. Because of the lack of a developmental theory, this finding could only be explained by a minor control of environmental features or by the experimental design. The experiments were conducted in a controlled virtual environment. In the first experiment, 11-year-old children explored two routes of equal length, which differed in the number of turns. Each child explored only one of the two routes in the second experiment. Only the first experiment demonstrated an influence in the number of turns on distance estimation. This result was confirmed in the last experiment with adults. If participants had no possibility to compare the routes in respect to their number of turns, both routes were estimated as equally long.

Male and female residents of seven slums in New Delhi, India, four slums in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and four slums in Islamabad, Pakistan, were interviewed about their reasons for migrating to and their satisfaction with their city. Although the single most commonly reported reason for moving was in search of work, significant proportions of migrants gave multiple reasons, and, particularly in Dhaka and Islamabad, many respondents partly attributed their move to fate. Results suggested that the attribution to fate was not due to either religion or poverty, but was related to perceived personal control. More generally, the reasons that respondents gave for migrating to the city were significantly related to their mental and physical health, to their ratings of their home and the city environment, and to their satisfaction with the city.

The purpose of this article is to explore spatial orientation and wayfinding behavior of newcomers in an unfamiliar environment and to emphasize the importance of landmarks and spatial differentiation in the acquisition of environmental knowledge. One setting with a symmetrical layout and regularly organized, monotonous units on different floors and another setting with an asymmetrical layout and repetitive units along one side of a linear corridor of one floor were used to explore different strategies for learning about large-scale spatial environments. Wayfinding performance was found to correlate with performances in sketch-map tasks and the answers of a questionnaire about each building. Most of the participants of the asymmetrical setting could complete a sketch map with a minimum of errors. In the symmetrical setting, however, some participants drew incomplete sketch maps but could find their way through the building with a minimum of errors.