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Sense of Community and the Perception of the Socio-Physical Environment: A Comparison Between Urban Centers of Different Sizes Across Europe

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Abstract

Embedded in the strand of research on the community determinants of sense of community (SoC), the study was designed to verify whether: (1) the size of the urban context was inversely related to residents’ SoC; (2) the size of the urban centers affected some of the correlates of SoC, namely the perception of social support, the residential environmental satisfaction, the residential social climate satisfaction, and the perceived reliability of local services in the areas of health, transport, administration, education, and security. The sample comprised 1254 individuals residing in a variety of towns/cities of different sizes in Southern and Northern Europe. Analyses revealed that the larger the town/city, the lower the SoC expressed by the inhabitants. They also showed that the residential environmental and social climate satisfaction, as well as perceived social support, were associated with an increase in SoC, but that there were variations in the patterns of associations according to towns/cities’ size.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement No. 602386.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, Society and Human Studies, Università del Salento, Via San Nicola - Angolo via di Valesio, 73100, Lecce, Italy

    Terri Mannarini & Cosimo Talò

  2. University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece

    Evangelia Ntzani

  3. Hellenic Health Foundation, Athens, Greece

    Maria Kritikou

  4. FIN-Nutrition Research Foundation, Barcelona, Spain

    Lluis Serra Majem

  5. ISBEM, Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy

    Sergio Salvatore

  6. Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Lisa Marie Warner

  7. Università degli Studi di Firenze, Florence, Italy

    Maria Luisa Brandi

  8. IUIBS-University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

    Lluis Serra Majem

  9. CIBEROBN, Madrid, Spain

    Lluis Serra Majem

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  1. Terri Mannarini
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  2. Cosimo Talò
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  3. Evangelia Ntzani
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  4. Maria Kritikou
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  5. Lluis Serra Majem
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  6. Sergio Salvatore
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  7. Lisa Marie Warner
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  8. Maria Luisa Brandi
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Correspondence to Terri Mannarini.

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Mannarini, T., Talò, C., Ntzani, E. et al. Sense of Community and the Perception of the Socio-Physical Environment: A Comparison Between Urban Centers of Different Sizes Across Europe. Soc Indic Res 137, 965–977 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-017-1647-8

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