Three essays on neighborhood effects: collective efficacy, cultural participation, and neighborhood physical disorder

Abstract

This dissertation is a collection of three essays on neighborhood effects, exploring the complex relationship between urban physical environments and social outcomes in Asian contexts. Focusing on neighborhood effects from neighborhood, family and methodology level, it harnesses Geographic Information System (GIS)-based techniques to unravel the spatial underpinnings of human behavior and societal structures in China's rapidly transforming urban landscape. The first essay delves into the influence of traditional marketplaces on neighborhood-level collective efficacy in Hong Kong. It demonstrates that conventional marketplaces significantly enhance community cohesion, especially in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, and calls for policymakers to preserve such social spaces during urban renewal process. The second essay shifts focus to how surrounding physical environment influences families’ behaviors, analyzing the spatial accessibility of cultural facilities and its relationship with family cultural participation in Shanghai. It reveals that proximity to cultural resources can mitigate the impact of social stratification on cultural engagement, suggesting that rational allocation of cultural amenities could foster the social equality. From the perspective of methodology, the third essay compares traditional in-person observations with AI-driven methods in assessing neighborhood physical disorder. The findings indicate that while AI techniques offer a powerful tool for large-scale assessment, they may introduce biases that traditional methods can help improve. In summary, these three essays contribute to both theoretical advancements and policy implications, underscoring the importance of spatial considerations in social sciences and offering insights for urban development strategies in China. The contributions of this dissertation are twofold. Theoretically, it enriches neighborhood studies in Asian context by integrating multi-source geographic data with survey data and introduce spatial analysis methods. Practically, the findings of this dissertation provide practical insights for urban redevelopment, resources allocation, as well as neighborhood evaluation, particularly within the rapidly evolving contexts of China and other Asian cities.

Date of Award	2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Supervisor	Ge Lin KAN (Supervisor) & Xiaogang Wu (Supervisor)