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The modern world is facing rapid urbanisation, increasing urban population, constant growth of cities and the construction of new neighbourhoods. Moreover, new neighbourhoods often lack the elements of identity in the context of the place and the people who live there. Therefore, it is necessary to construct these identities together with the physical and natural structure of place and the cultural identity of the people. The construction of spatial identities has been studied in two case studies of “new” neighbourhoods, Mađir (Banjaluka, Bosnia- Herzegovina) and Ilsvika (Trondheim, Norway), using a qualitative analysis method. The comparison makes use of a triangle model that includes three elements of identity construction as three points of analysis: a) spatial context, b) participation in processes of planning and construction and c) action in place. The two cultural contexts and two ways of constructing spatial identity in the new neighbourhoods studied show certain similarities and differences. The study points to the universal significance of this phenomenon and indicates that the process could be improved in each case by applying positive experiences from the other, with adaptation to the specific context. Considering the importance and interrelation of the three elements involved in construction of spatial identities, they should be harmonised in all stages of development.

Guided walks near a light rail stop in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, were examined using a 2 (gender) × 3 (route walkability: low- mixed-, or high- walkability features) design. Trained raters confirmed that more walkable segments had more traffic, environmental, and social safety; pleasing aesthetics; natural features; pedestrian amenities; and land use diversity (using the Irvine-Minnesota physical environment audit) and a superior social milieu rating. According to tape-recorded open-ended descriptions, university student participants experienced walkable route segments as noticeably safer, with a more positive social environment, fewer social and physical incivilities, and more attractive natural and built environment features. According to closed-ended scales, walkable route segments had more pleas- ant social and/or environmental atmosphere and better traffic safety. Few gender differences were found. Results highlight the importance of under- standing subjective experiences of walkability and suggest that these experiences should be an additional focus of urban design.

Research indicates that people are drawn to green spaces with attractive amenities. This study extends that finding by comparing walking patterns in two neighborhoods with different numbers of parks; parks did not differ in rated attractiveness nor did neighborhoods differ substantially in rated walkability. Adults, aged 32e86 years (n 1⁄4 90), drew their 3 most recent walking routes on maps of their neighborhood. Analyses showed that participants’ round trips were longer by 265.5 m (0.16 mile) in the neighborhood with a single, large, centrally located park (p < 0.02). However, participants in the neighborhood with multiple, small, more distributed parks, visited more streets, p < 0.001, more streets with green spaces, p < 0.038, and used more varied routes, p < 0.012. Results suggest there are potential benefits to both layouts. Large centralized parks may invite longer walks; smaller, well-distributed parks may invite more varied routes suggestive of appropriation and motivation processes. Both layouts might be combined in a single neighborhood to attract more walkers.

Previous gang research has focused primarily on the attributes of individuals who join gangs. This ecological study of violent urban youth gangs examines the social, economic, and physical organization of places where gangs locate. Our goal is to understand those features of communities that either facilitate the formation of gangs or insulate an area from gang formation. By interviewing gang members and having them map places where they came together as a sociological group to “hang out,” we study what we label as the “set space” of gangs. Our study is analogous to criminological studies of where criminal acts occur rather than of the factors that lead an individual to commit criminal acts. This study indicates that gang set space is usually a very small geographic area, much smaller than neighborhoods or even census tracts. A probability (logit) model estimates the influence of various local area attributes on the presence of violent youth gangs in census block groups. Diminished social control—in the absence of capable guardians and physical abandonment of place—and underclass features increase the likelihood of observing violent youth gangs hanging out in a particular area.

The collection of large-scale administrative records in electronic form by many cities provides a new opportunity for the measurement and longitudinal tracking of neighborhood characteristics, but one that will require novel methodologies that convert such data into research-relevant measures. The authors illustrate these challenges by developing measures of “broken windows” from Boston’s constituent relationship management (CRM) system (aka 311 hotline). A 16-month archive of the CRM database contains more than 300,000 address-based requests for city services, many of which reference physical incivilities (e.g., graffiti removal). The authors carry out three ecometric analyses, each building on the previous one. Analysis 1 examines the content of the measure, identifying 28 items that constitute two independent constructs, private neglect and public denigration. Analysis 2 assesses the validity of the measure by using investigator-initiated neighborhood audits to examine the “civic response rate” across neighborhoods. Indicators of civic response were then extracted from the CRM database so that measurement adjustments could be automated. These adjustments were calibrated against measures of litter from the objective audits. Analysis 3 examines the reliability of the composite measure of physical disorder at different spatiotemporal windows, finding that census tracts can be measured at two-month intervals and census block groups at six-month intervals. The final measures are highly detailed, can be tracked longitudinally, and are virtually costless. This framework thus provides an example of how new forms of large-scale administrative data can yield ecometric measurement for urban science while illustrating the methodological challenges that must be addressed.

Functioning public spaces, as ‘public’ political, social, and cultural arenas of citizen discourse, affect not only the citizen’s quality of life, but are also indispensable infrastructure in democratic societies. This article offers a nuanced understanding of Iranian women’s usage, feelings, and preferences in public spaces in present-day Tehran by not simply importing Western theories that sustain distinctions between traditional and modern women, but instead by hearing women’s stories. This article raises concerns related to the gender identities, the politics of space, and design of these places. Meidan-e-Tajrish, Sabz-e-Meidan, and Marvi Meidancheh in Tehran accommodate an ethnographic visualization of gendering space. The process by which Iranian women attach symbolic meanings to those public spaces offers insight into the mutual construction of gender identities and space politics. The contrasting urban locations, different design styles, and distinct social activities provide an excellent comparison between the selected public spaces. Findings suggest caution in using gender as an essential category in feminist geography research to better represent the diversity of experiences in public spaces. Binary categorization of modern versus traditional, secular versus religious, public versus private, and male versus female in urban studies should be carefully validated as Iranian women’s lived experiences challenge the homogenizing Western theories, particularly the predominant critics of modern public spaces in North America. The research process also highlights the benefits of geo-visualization in understanding the complex interaction between gender identities and the built environment.

Ordinary kriging, a spatial interpolation technique, is commonly used in social sciences to estimate neighborhood attributes such as physical disorder. Universal kriging, developed and used in physical sciences, extends ordinary kriging by supplementing the spatial model with additional covariates. We measured physical disorder on 1,826 sampled block faces across four U.S. cities (New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, and San Jose) using Google Street View imagery. We then compared leave-one-out cross-validation accuracy between universal and ordinary kriging and used random subsamples of our observed data to explore whether universal kriging could provide equal measurement accuracy with less spatially dense samples. Universal kriging did not always improve accuracy. However, a measure of housing vacancy did improve estimation accuracy in Philadelphia and Detroit (7.9 percent and 6.8 percent lower root mean square error, respectively) and allowed for equivalent estimation accuracy with half the sampled points in Philadelphia. Universal kriging may improve neighborhood measurement.