Community ties: Patterns of attachment and social interaction in urban neighborhoods

Attachment to place: Discriminant validity, and impacts of disorder and diversity

“…Discrepancies that have emerged in different studies stem in part from differing operationalizations of attachment. Studies that had fairly similar measures of attachment, such as Gerson et al (1977) and Riger and Lavrakas (1981), have observed similar predictors.…”

“…(b) Length of address in the neighborhood was used as a measure of the temporal aspect of attachment. Riger and Lavrakas (1981) also included this as a measure of attachment. We decided to use it as a measure of attachment rather than a predictor of attachment because, as Gerson et al (1977, p. 148) point out, length of residence can be a result of local involvement as well as a cause.…”

“…One indication of discriminant validity would be if the territorial variables end up on a component separate from the attachment variables. Although earlier analyses (Riger & Lavrakas, 1981) used oblique rotations to assess dimensionality of attachment, we used a varimax rotation. With the oblique rotation there are serious problems in achieving clear conceptual clusters (see Gordon, 1968, p. 605).…”

“…(a) Owner status (scored 1) versus renter status (scored 0) is a crude but significant indicator of capital and probably emotional investment in an area. This was used by Riger and Lavrakas (1981) as a measure of attachment. (b) Length of address in the neighborhood was used as a measure of the temporal aspect of attachment.…”

“…Kasarda and Janowitz (1974), however, did not find that these two attributes influenced levels of attachment. Riger and Lavrakas (1981) found that attributes such as age, income, number of children living at home, and educational level discriminated persons who showed different patterns of attachment. It is clear from even these few studies that demographic and social class factors are linked to attachment levels.…”