Characteristics of Voluntary Behavior in the Neighborhood Commons

Abstract

The neighborhood commons, and dog parks in particular, provide a good laboratory to explore the drivers of voluntarism and trust, as well as the situational and demographic correlates that promote or inhibit voluntarism. This analysis connects a central theme of Ostrom's work on institutions for overcoming social dilemmas to the literature on voluntary actions and the health of small communities. Survey results from more than 500 users of 14 dog parks in the Atlanta area are examined to understand how variation in park and user characteristics predict variation in individual contributions to the commons, including prosocial attitudes and behavior and dispute resolution behavior. Our analysis shows how institutions foster community commons, which are correlated with both voluntarism and the voluntary enforcement of norms on users. These results from a study in the field contribute to a growing literature that explores the circumstances for successful voluntary supply and maintenance of public goods.

The Influence of Neighbor Effect and Urbanization Toward Organ Donation in Thailand

“…For example, the National Center for Environment Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requested that land use planning should consider the effects on public health. 24 Noonan et al 25 found that belonging to a neighborhood was associated with prosocial behaviors. Lenzi et al 26 showed that neighborhood behavioral opportunities and social resources resulted in prosocial behavior in early adolescence.…”

Resource allocation at an income‐sharing community: An application of Elinor Ostrom's commons framework

“…For example, in a pioneering piece in this strand, Davis and Ostrom (1991) delineate the ways in which institutions and communities can actively produce and provide educational services as a commons, with little differentiation or exclusion among recipients. Other studies in this strand focus on the production and provision of infrastructural services, like decentralised ‘smart’ grids (Araya & Taylor, 2016; Wolsink, 2012) or communally used spaces such as dog parks (Noonan, Matisoff, & Hoelzel, 2016). Environmental protection services (Tompkins & Adger, 2004), care services (Bushouse, 2011), and emergency and housing services (Alford, 2014) are also studied.…”