Biological, Psychosocial, and Social Capital Implications of the Neighborhood Built Environment.

Abstract

Understanding which features of the urban built environment contribute to human health and well-being is a major target for health policy research aimed both at reducing social disparities in health outcomes and at preventing the onset of chronic disease population-wide. At the same time, changes in urban planning policy have been targeted as a possible strategy for environmental, social, fiscal, transportation and other policy improvements as well. In an innovative application of ecological, biomarker, and social survey data for Chicago, this dissertation explores the implications of residential location for individual biological, psychosocial, and social well-being in terms of (1) the accumulation of biological risk factors for disease, (2) cynically hostile personality, and (3) perception of neighborhood social relations. Chapter 2 examines how sorting into residential neighborhoods explains black-white disparities in the accumulation of biological risk factors. The third chapter first examines social disparities in cynical hostility and the extent to which neighborhoods can explain them, before demonstrating that cynical hostility is much more spatially clustered than had been previously realized. Ambient stressors related to traffic (noise, traffic danger, and air quality) are the most likely explanation for this clustering. Chapter 4 investigates how physical features of urban neighborhoods including housing and walkable urban form, along with social composition and residential stability, predict perceived neighborhood social relations (cohesion, control, intergenerational closure, and reciprocal exchange) previously linked with downstream health, social, and behavioral risks. Housing building types, especially detached houses and high-rise apartments, significantly predict social relations, both independently and through their association with residential stability. Housing and urban form also have differential associations with social relations outcomes according to the socioeconomic status of area residents. A gradual pace of redevelopment resulting in historical diversity of housing strongly and significantly predicts social relations. Walkable urban form (residential density, mixed land use, and street connectivity) appears comparatively less important but shows promise in predicting reciprocal exchange. The finding that physical conditions like housing and urban form have implications for social relations should encourage efforts to develop urban planning policies designed to foster neighborly social relations in concert with other related beneficial outcomes.