Urban environments

Prof. Elena V. Sautkina

Department of Psychology, HSE
OVERVIEW
Urban Environmental Quality

Urban Environment and Stress

Incivilities, Crime and Fear of Crime in Cities

Cities as Sources of Well-being

Assessment of Residential Environments

Cities and Social Life

 Urban Environmental Quality
Can be investigated through:

● Objective measures by experts (quantifiable indicators)

● Subjective assessments by lay people (quant or qual perceptions, attitudes)

Environmental design takes both into account, e.g. in participatory design.

Urban Environmental Quality
Urban Environmental Quality

Milgram (1970) studied psychological effects of urban living:

- City overload: large numbers, density, heterogeneity

- Social overload: social roles, norms, facilities
- Adaptive mechanisms create typical “city” tones and behaviours
- Distinctive characters of cities (London, NY, Paris)
- Can be studied experimentally (e.g. Altman et al., unpublished in Milgram, 1970)
 Urban Environment and Stress
When there is an imbalance between environmental demands and coping
resources in cities, we talk about urban stress.
Attitudes moderate stress

People evaluate:

1) seriousness, necessity and predictability of stressors

2) perceived control over them (Lazarus & Cohen, 1977).

Distress Vs. Coping

 The negative effects of noise

Physical characteristics: Psychological characteristics:

Intensity (e.g. decibel), Unwanted, unimportant

Frequency (e.g. pitch), Danger
Periodicity (continuous or intermittent) Degree of predictability
Duration Degree of personal control
(Evans & Cohen, 1987)

Intense, unpredictable and uncontrollable noise gives rise to negative emotions

(Fields, 1993; Guski, 1999)
 When noise is what we want

Physical characteristics: Psychological characteristics:

Intensity (e.g. decibel), Wanted, important

Frequency (e.g. pitch), Safe
Periodicity (continuous or intermittent) Degree of predictability
Duration Degree of personal control
(Evans & Cohen, 1987)
The effects of noise
Chronic noise leads to physiological stress:

- Higher stress hormones

- Higher blood pressure

E.g., Noisy work environments (Tomei et al., 2010), children living near airports
(Evans, Bullinger, & Hygge, 1998)
The Effects of Noise

Psychological effects

Cognitive:

● Impairs attention allocation and work performance (Evans & Hygge, 2007)
● Damages memory (Cohen et al., 1986)
● Impairs reading ability (Bronzaft, 1981)

Motivational: reduced motivation after-effects (Glass & Singer, 1972).

Urban Environment and Stress

Two explanations of negative reactions to urban conditions:

- Emotional: High level of arousal impedes performance (Yerkes &

Dodson, 1908). The higher the level of emotional arousal, the stronger
urban stress.

- Cognitive: co-presence of multiple stressors can lead to stimulus

overload (Broadbent, 1958; Cohen, 1978). Mental fatigue, cognitive
impairment, ‘tunnel vision’.
The Effects of Crowding
Crowding: psychological state that occurs when the need for space exceeds
the available supply (Stokols, 1972).

Subject to differences:

- Individual factors (e.g. personality, gender, age)

- Situational factors (e.g. duration, activity, private vs. public space)
- Cultural factors (e.g. ethnic).
The Effects of Crowding
Physiological: Emotional arousal, levels of stress hormones, blood pressure.

Psychological: invasions of personal space lead to limited social interactions and

behavioural options.

A coping strategy is formed: social withdrawal (Baum and Valins, 1977):

- reduced eye contact,

- interpersonal distancing
- inhibition in initiating a conversation.

Coping by withdrawal inadvertently damages social support, thus reducing

resources to deal with other stressors (Evans & Cohen, 2004).
The Effects of Poor Housing Quality

Living in poor housing conditions also induces stress.

Sources: Quality of municipal and retail services, poor recreational

opportunities, high street traffic, low accessibility of transportation,
poor maintenance or poor visual surveillance, residential instability,
poor physical quality of educational and healthcare facilities,
pollution, etc..
Effects of Poor Neighbourhood Quality
Psychological distress among those living in these conditions (Gifford & Lacombe,
2006).

Stress effects are found even when controlled for SES, age and gender
(Schaeffer et al., 1988; Evans et al., 1998; Evans & Marcynyszyn, 2004):

● Stress hormones levels were high (children, adolescents and adults)

● Environmental assessment (quality of dwellings, noise dB, crowding measured).

Mental health impacts: anxiety, depression (Hiscock et al., 2003; Shenassa,

2007).

Cross-sectional and longitudinal research linked to elevated physiological stress.

The Effects of Poor Housing Quality

Generally, improvements in housing conditions are associated with increases in

happiness and life satisfaction (Evans et al., 2000; Halpern, 1995).

But housing improvements are not a ‘silver bullet’ solution to social neighbourhood
problems. Why do you think?
Incivilities, Crime and Fear of Crime
in Urban Environments
Crime and the City
Generally, cities have higher crime rates per number of inhabitants compared
to suburban or rural areas (demonstrated since the 1970s).

Why is this the case?

 Crime and the City

Cities are potential crime generators (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1995):

- Higher socio-economic divergence, anonymity and lesser social control

(Milgram, 1970),
- Multiple social and physical environmental opportunities to commit crime
(Moser, 1992),
- Cities attract different populations and are open to the intrusion of strangers,
some of whom may have criminal intentions (Brantingham & Brantingham,
1995).
Environmental characteristics and crime
Social incivilities: disorganisation
and inequalities, presence of gangs,
drug addicts and dealers, prostitutes
and homeless

Absence of residential watch

Environmental characteristics and crime
The quality of lighting,

The presence of gaps and of empty

passages between buildings,

Physical incivilities: littering, graffiti,

abandoned buildings, vehicles,
broken shop windows

Broken windows theory

(Wilson & Kelling, 1982)
Environmental characteristics and crime
Characteristics of buildings: their
structure and size

Characteristics of streets: the

number of streets in an area, their
width, traffic characteristics

Boundary characteristics: distance

to the principal routes, presence of
real or symbolic barriers, proximity of
industrial or derelict zones.

Proportion of non-residential and

residential territories.
Defensible space (Newman, 1972)

Territoriality: sense of belonging, refuge possibilities

Natural surveillance: physical design enables see-through and watch

Image: physical features conferring a sense of safety (orderliness, cleanliness)

Milieu: safety ‘objects’, e.g. proximity of police stations, busy areas

Safe adjacent areas

The ‘spatial paradox’

Criminals and potential victims perceive environmental features from

fundamentally different positions (Ham-Rowbottom, Gifford, & Shaw, 1999):

Population: environmental features may have particular socially shared

significations, including those related to safety and potential risks.

Criminals: ‘rational choice’, effort-reward-risk perspective.

Cities as Sources of Well-Being
Sources of culture and conviviance!

Restorative potential: Green areas, Historical heritage

Well-being and the City
Well-maintained urban parks, green streets enhance people’s well-being and
health.

- Communicate message of care and sense of safety (Maas, Spreeuwenberg et

al., 2009; Nasar & Fisher, 1993).
- Increase opportunities for social interaction, mutual acquaintance, community
control (Coley, Kuo, & Sullivan, 1997).
- Promote community inclusion and cohesion (Peters, Elands, & Buijs, 2010).
- Less loneliness, more social support, better health (especially low income,
elderly, children (Maas et al., 2009).
Restorative capacities of cities
While urban overload is a source of fatigue and stress,

Urban nature is a source of restoration (i.e. recovery) from these (Kaplan & Kaplan,
1989).
 Restorative capacities of cities

Less aggression and family violence in green neighbourhoods (Kuo & Sullivan,
2001)
Restorative capacities of cities
- Lower stress in drivers on green roads vs. totally built roads (Cackowski &
Nasar, 2003)
Restorative capacities of cities
- Green roofs enhance well-being and cognitive performance (Lee et al., 2015)
Restorative capacities of cities
Built settings of cities also promote psychological restoration.

Museums and sights with adequate ambient conditions (e.g. lighting, space,
layout, temperature, peace).

Pleasant and fascinating elements providing physical and psychological comfort

and opportunities for reflection are restorative (Packer, 2008).
Hartig et al. (1997) Revised Perceived
Restorativeness Scale
F1: Being away: Escape experience, Break from routine

F2: Fascination: Much to explore and discover, Willingness to stay and look

F3: Extent: Open, Chaotic, Much going on

F4: Compatibility: Being able to do things one likes there, Gives a sense of
belonging to the place, Suiting one’s personality, Many things to enjoy oneself.
Assessment of Residential Environments
Multidimensionality of environmental
assessment
Environmental assessment can be performed by measuring objective
environmental cues (experts, researchers)

Objective and subjective data (e.g. residential mobility data, prices for real
estate vs. intentions to stay in the area/leave the area)

We can also rely on people’s perceptions of their environments, e.g. residential

satisfaction scales.

These dimensions are interrelated.

Multidimensionality of environmental
assessment
Diaz-Serrano & Stoyanova, 2010:

12 EU countries, longitudinal data, multiple factors influencing actual residential

mobility.

Room crowding directly influenced residential mobility

BUT

Housing inefficiencies, noise, pollution and crime effects on residential

mobility were mediated by residential satisfaction.
Perceptions of residential environments

Perceived residential environment quality indicators PREQIs (Fornara,

Bonaiuto, & Bonnes, 2010):

Identified the scales of residential quality along 4 dimensions:

Spatial: architectural and urban planning, e.g. building aesthetics, green areas.

Human: people and social relationships, e.g. security, sociability.

Functional: services and facilities, e.g. transport services, sport services.

Contextual: pace of life, environmental health/pollution and upkeep/care,

relaxing/distressing, stimulating/boring, neighbourhood attachment, etc.
Cities and Social Life
Politeness and the City
Moser & Corroyer (2001) studied and compared politeness behaviours in a big city
(Paris) and a medium city (Nantes)

Do people entering a large department store hold the door open for the
person behind them?

880 participants, observed at the entrance

Politeness and the City
- No gender differences (either holding or held)

- Parisians were less civil than provincial participants

- People in high social density conditions were less civil in both settings

In the presence of a polite model (the preceding person holding the door for
them), Parisians, but not the provincial sample, were more (albeit minimally)
polite.

Try observing this in your city!

Cities and Social Relationships

A comparison of the world of relationships between provincials, Parisians, and

inhabitants of the outskirts of Paris showed that provincials have significantly
more long-term interpersonal relationships than those who live in Paris,
especially outskirts (Moser, Legendre, & Ratiu, 2003).

In a study on Mexico City, Salvador (2000) identified two types of everyday social
contacts: opening outward (lower SES), or withdrawal into the home (higher
SES).
Mixed Effects of Mixed Tenure in Cities
Mixed tenure is an urban
planning strategy

Poorer and more affluent

residents come to live in a
mixed community

Expectations of social inclusion,

getting into jobs, better
education attainments, better
health and well-being
Mixed Evidence on Mixed Tenure Effects

Sautkina, Bond & Kearns (2012) Systematic review of UK Studies, 1995–2009:

Positive impacts of mixed tenure were found in the social (kinship networks) and
residential domains (better housing, better residential satisfaction), but no major
impacts on social capital (no role models created).

The evidence for mixed tenure effects in the environmental, safety and
economic domains is very mixed.

Health effects limited, due to housing improvements (GoWell team, 2010)

Social Capital and the City

Mazumdar et al. (2018): Systematic review on built environment and social

capital

Significant positive relationship between social cohesion and access to

destinations/walkability.

Positive relationship between social capital, design and diversity.

Population density has a negative and unclear influence on social capital.

 Homework

WORK IN PAIRS TO ACCESS URBAN ENVIRONMENTS ON ONE OF THE TASKS:

● OBSERVATIONS: Revised Residential Environment Assessment Tool - assess 2

places and compare them (Poortinga et al., 2016)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0013916516634403
● RESIDENTIAL PERCEPTIONS: Perceived Residential Environment Quality -
survey 20 people in a neighbourhood - use any 10 PREQIs (Fornara, Bonaiuto,
Bonnes, 2010) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0013916508330998
● OBSERVATIONS: Politeness in cities - observe 2 places in different cities (20
people in each place) and compare them (Moser & Corroyer, 2001)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00139160121973151
Homework
● FIND 1 COLLEAGUE TO WORK WITH
● INDICATE YOUR CHOICE:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mi_7bH3Z2VR7g2Yau48gzHA2VPJ
TLr0CJ5jeL7X9vrc/edit#gid=908250029
● PREPARE A 10 MINUTES PRESENTATION
- Fieldwork site description with photos (e.g. neighbourhood, shop,
underground station)
- Method used (brief)
- Sample description (for Choice 2)
- Results and Discussion
- Research Limitations
- Recommendations