Perceived neighborhood ethnic diversity and social outcomes: Context-dependent effects within a postindustrial city undergoing regeneration

Abstract

This article examines whether perceived neighborhood ethnic diversity is associated with a range of social outcomes in a postindustrial city undergoing regeneration. The research included a survey in 3 types of deprived area in Glasgow: those undergoing regeneration, those directly adjoining regeneration areas, and those further removed from regeneration areas. In areas undergoing regeneration, perceived diversity was positively associated with many residential, cohesion, safety, and empowerment outcomes. This was also true, although to a lesser extent, in deprived areas at some distance from regeneration areas. In areas immediately surrounding the regeneration areas, perceived diversity had mixed associations with residential and safety outcomes and few associations with cohesion and empowerment outcomes. The results suggest that the effects of perceived diversity are context dependent within a city. Moreover, regeneration processes alter neighborhood contexts and therefore enable scale, timing, and duration of diversity to mediate the relationships between perceived diversity and social outcomes.

Urban regeneration and mental health: Investigating the effects of an area-based intervention using a modified intention to treat analysis with alternative outcome measures

“…Lastly, the results showing positive effects for the areas surrounding the larger regeneration areas, which are in receipt of relocated residents and a limited amount of new housing, indicate a number of things: that shorter-distance moves may be positive for mental health and wellbeing, echoing findings from earlier eras of relocation where longer distances resulted in feelings of loss of community (Young and Willmott, 1957); that 'negative spillover effects' are not an inevitable corollary of regeneration (Kleinhans and Varaday, 2011); and that social compositional changes brought about by regeneration, in this case an increased presence of ethnic minority residents relocated from tower blocks (Lawson and Kearns, 2017), are not necessarily negative, as is often assumed (McCartney et al, 2017), and indeed may be positive where a community lacked cohesion previously (Kearns and Whitley, 2018).…”

Towards City Resilience: The Influence of Socio-cultural and Economic Features of Housing on Population Growth in Public Residential Estates

“…This seems to be consistent with Mulder's (2012) argument that population influences housing via housing demand, while housing influences the number of people and households via attraction of migrants. In addition, the study by Kearns and Whitley (2018) found that perceived ethnic diversity was associated with safety and control, and thus attributed this to the positive neighborhood cohesion outcomes; and positive neighborhood cohesion outcomes are attributes of resilient cities. It is suggested that building social cohesion in a community can manifest itself as a result of strong social networks (Carpenter, 2013).…”

Facebooking for Good: Online Contact to Address Offline Conflict

“…Conflict theory accounts for the negative association between diversity and trust most often found in the U.S., but by no means restricted to here (Alesina & La Ferrara, 2002;Costa & Kahn, 2003;Putnam, 2007). Results ranging from Britain (Laurence, Schmid, & Hewstone, 2018) to Sweden (Goldschmidt, Hallsten, & Rydgren, 2017) to Scotland (Kearns & Whitley, 2017) to Germany (Gundelach & Traunmüller, 2014) suggest that diversity has a negative effect on trust internationally. "The more we are brought into physical proximity with people of another race or ethnic background, the more we stick to our own and the less we trust the other" (Putnam, 2007, p. 142).…”