This paper explores the association between neighbourhood land use features and informal social control. More specifically, we examine the extent to which such features in combination with the socio-demographic context of the neighbourhood facilitate or impede collective efficacy and local civic actions. We achieve this through spatially integrating data from the census, topographic databases and a 2012 survey of 4132 residents from 148 neighbourhoods in Brisbane, Australia. The study creates a new classification of a neighbourhood’s physical environment by creating novel categories of land use features that depict social conduits, social holes and social wedges. Social conduits are features of the neighbourhood that facilitate interaction between individuals, social holes are land uses that create situations where there is no occupancy, and social wedges are features that carve up neighbourhoods. We find some evidence to suggest that residents’ reports of collective efficacy are higher in neighbourhoods with a greater density of social conduits. Density of social conduits is also positively associated with local civic action. However, in neighbourhoods with more greenspace, residents are less likely to engage in local civic actions.

Research shows that residents report high levels of disorder in places with greater concentrations of minorities even after controlling for objective indicators of crime or disorder. Less understood, however, are the mechanisms that explain this relationship. Drawing on a survey of nearly 10,000 residents nested within 297 neighborhoods across two cities, we use a multiple indicators multiple causes model to examine the cues that lead individuals to distort the presence of minorities in neighborhoods. We then employ multi-level models to assess how these distortions influence perceptions of disorder. Further, we assess if living in a socially cohesive neighborhood mediates and/or moderates the relationship between “seeing” minorities and perceiving disorder. We find that when residents overestimate the proportion of minorities living in their neighborhood, perceptions of disorder are heightened. Yet social cohesion moderates and partially mediates this relationship: residents living in socially cohesive neighborhoods not only report less disorder than those living in less cohesive communities; they “see” fewer minorities when compared to residents living in less socially cohesive neighborhoods. These results suggest that social cohesion is an important mechanism for explaining how residents internalize the presence of minorities in their neighborhoods and how this then leads to perceived neighborhood disorder.

Research shows that residents report high levels of disorder in places with greater concentrations of minorities even after controlling for objective indicators of crime or disorder. Less understood, however, are the mechanisms that explain this relationship. Drawing on a survey of nearly 10,000 residents nested within 297 neighborhoods across two cities, we use a multiple indicators-multiple causes model to examine the cues that lead individuals to distort the presence of minorities in neighborhoods. We then employ multilevel models to test whether these distortions influence perceptions of disorder. Furthermore, we assess whether living in a socially cohesive neighborhood mediates and/or moderates the relationship between "seeing" minorities and perceiving disorder. We find that when residents overestimate the proportion of minorities living in their neighborhood, perceptions of disorder are heightened. Yet social cohesion moderates and partially mediates this relationship: Residents living in socially cohesive neighborhoods not only report less disorder than those living in less cohesive communities, but also they "see" fewer minorities when compared with residents living in less socially cohesive neighborhoods. These results suggest that social cohesion is an important mechanism for explaining how residents internalize the presence of minorities in their neighborhoods and how this then leads to perceived neighborhood disorder. © 2013 American Society of Criminology.

Given the importance of the neighbourhood context for residents’ social cohesion, the current study examines the association between types of social and non-social places on three indicators of social cohesion: neighbour networks, social cohesion and neighbourhood attachment. We spatially integrate data from the census, topographic databases and a 2012 survey of 4132 residents from 148 neighbourhoods in Brisbane, Australia, and employ multilevel models to assess whether the variation in resident reports of social cohesion is attributable to land uses that function as neighbourhood social conduits. We also consider the degree to which neighbourhood fragmentation affects our indicators of social cohesion. Our findings reveal that even after controlling for the socio-demographic context of the neighbourhood and a range of individual and household control variables, residents’ reports of social cohesion are significantly associated with the types of social conduits, the diversity of land use and the degree of neighbourhood fragmentation.