Williamsburg I

What Makes a Healthy Neighborhood...

Mar 15, 2007

The following article was published by the Neighborhood Resource Center and deals with ?“What makes a Community Healthy?”.

?“ Many of us tend to think of health in terms of physical well being. If our body is healthy, we feel happy and productive. The same can be said about communities.

Various factors contribute to the health of a community. Communities that exhibit physical safety, vibrant social networks, and sound property values may be called healthy, whereas communities with evidence of high crime rates, social isolation, and sagging property values may not be healthy.

What causes some communities to be ?“healthy?” while others are termed ?“unhealthy?”? Is it the poverty, ethnicity, or transience of residents? Is it the ratio of owner-occupied housing to rental housing stock? Is it the percentage of families vs. single or single-parent households?

In a broad context the above measures are really symptoms of something deeper. The foundation of a healthy community is strong relationships among the people who live and work in the community.

A recent study shows the value of personal relationships to the health of a community. Researchers from the University of Chicago, Michigan State University, and the Harvard School of Public Health undertook a study of 343 Chicago neighborhoods.

The researchers examined the influences of poverty; unemployment; public assistance; immigration; age; race and class segregation; rapid population change; residential mobility; home ownership; family composition; friendship and kinship ties-factors we normally think of as contributing to crime.

They also looked at neighborhood participation, neighborhood responsibility, and neighborhood trust. They measured these factors using a survey designed to evaluate the willingness of adults to intervene and show responsibility for neighborhood children.

The study?’s results, published in the August 1997 Science magazine, confirmed the premise of an African proverb made famous by Hillary Clinton: ?“It takes a village to raise a child.?” Yet in this study, a village meant a neighborhood.

In their findings, the researchers used the term collective efficacy to describe the level of responsibility and trust found in neighborhoods. The study revealed that neighborhoods with high efficacy had low levels of violent crime.

In low-crime neighborhoods, for example, adults were more willing to intervene if a child skipped school or was caught spray-painting graffiti. Responsible and trusting relationships between neighborhood residents, and their willingness to help each other, had a greater impact on the health of a community that anything else.?”

An interesting fact that also came out in this report is how the strength and security of a strong neighborhood had a profound effect on the resident?’s physical and psychological well being.