The effects of built environment on community participation in urban neighbourhoods: an empirical exploration

Attention to the physical characteristics of the urban environment is the fundamental aspect of urban studies. Despite the many theoretical contributions that explore the interaction between space and social phenomena from a theoretical point of view, we still find today the absence of a general empirical reflection on this issue. In this article the results of the doctoral thesis of the author will be presented, where the relationship between the socio-physical characteristics of the neighbourhood and community participation has been studied. The reason why we focused on the community participation lies on the need to explore the role played by urban environment in affecting the propensity by dwellers to participate to local activities. Since most of literature on community participation draw the attention only to the socio-demographics factors, we want to stress the impact of socio-physical variables in affecting the phenomenon here presented. The research has been carried out using the contribute of environmental psychology, from which we took the methodology in order to address the study of the interaction between humans and environments. Multivariate regression models show a high explanatory capacity of spatial variables on community participation and the effect of sociodemographic variables is in fact marginal. The results of the analyses show that the socio-physical characteristics of the neighbourhoods studied are not a passive background of the social phenomenon, but are variables that intervenes directly in. The research thus reveals the active role played by spatial factors in neighbourhoods when local participation processes occur In the neighbourhoods, improving the scientific debate on the community participation and urban studies.