KEY TAKEAWAY:

• Perceptions of community beauty and availability of community events greatly impacts people’s trust and appreciation of their local leaders and police, levels of community engagement and neighborhood social interaction, and perceptions of their ability to make a difference in their community.
• This study provides helpful strategies and evaluation measures for enhancing Safe Routes to School programming and participation.

RESULTS:

• Enhanced perceptions of community beauty is consistently and positively associated with:

• 28% greater likelihood of thinking local leaders represent their interests
• 28% greater likelihood of having high levels of trust in the police
• 19% greater likelihood of believing that they can have an impact on their local community

• High availability of community events is consistently and positively associated with:

• 13% greater likelihood of trusting the government to do what is right
• 17% greater likelihood of caring about their neighbors
• 22% greater likelihood of having attended a local event in the last year
• 19% greater likelihood of thinking they can have an impact on their community

METHODS:

• This Knight Foundation-funded study used 2010 data from a three-year (2008-2010) Gallup-conducted Soul of the Community (SOTC) survey that took place in 26 U.S. communities. The survey was conducted via 15-minute phone interviews with a sample of over 15,000 adults that resulted from a minimum of 400 randomly selected households in each community, each year. The 2010 data was the only year used for this publication as it was the only year that included cell phone surveys and surveys in both English and Spanish. The survey was intended to understand the role of community attachment in a city’s economic growth and well-being. Analysis focuses on selected questions that provide data around Assembly’s four civic engagement objectives – civic trust and appreciation, participation in public life, stewardship of the public realm, and informed local voting. An ordered logistic regression with fixed effects at the city level and individual-level control variables was used for analysis.

Center for Active Design. (2016). Assembly – Shaping Space for Civic Life – Research Brief I. Retrieved from: https://centerforactivedesign.org/assemblyresearchbriefone