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Why People Like Where They Live: Individual- and Community-Level Contributors to Community Satisfaction

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Abstract

Using multi-level modeling in 26 communities, this study examines contributors to three domains of community satisfaction—overall satisfaction, social life satisfaction, and infrastructure satisfaction. Human capital/demographic and social capital/network contributors emerge at both the individual and community levels in accounting for variation in community satisfaction. Some effects remain the same across levels and domains, but some effects differ. For example, living near family members increases satisfaction in all domains at the individual level, but at the community level, it decreases satisfaction in all domains. Residing in communities high in urbanicity reduces overall satisfaction, but has no effect on infrastructure satisfaction. Moreover, both individual and community level factors matter and impact community satisfaction.

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Notes

  1. In fact, it could also be that residents like where they live because of an innate need to justify the existing status quo. Jost et al. (2004) describe this phenomena as the system justification theory. While we are not able to measure the individual unconscious justifications, we can assume that residents (consciously or unconsciously) like (and justify) where they live (Jost et al. 2004).

  2. The 26 communities used in this analysis are listed in Table 1 and ranked by their averaged satisfaction scores across the three domains of satisfaction. Additional information regarding the 26 communities can be found at the Census website: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html.

  3. Similar methods were used by Neal and Neal (2012) in their analysis of the Soul of the Community survey.

  4. The only exception is the community of Long Beach, California. Instead, Gallup used city boundaries to determine the community area. For further information about this survey, see John and James Knight Foundation (2010).

  5. This pattern appears for all of the domains as well. We will consider home ownership and satisfaction in more detail in the Summary and Conclusion section.

  6. Substituting the aggregated individual income measure from the Knight Survey with U.S. Census community-level median income produced similar results.

  7. A 2013 survey reported that homeownership was not viewed as an attractive a vehicle for wealth accumulation as 20 or 30 years ago (MacArthur Foundation 2013) and Fannie Mae’s longitudinal National Housing Survey shows similar results (Belsky 2013).

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  1. Department of Sociology, Baylor University, One Bear Place #97326, Waco, TX, 76798-7326, USA

    Brittany M. Fitz, Larry Lyon & Robyn Driskell

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  1. Brittany M. Fitz
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  2. Larry Lyon
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Correspondence to Brittany M. Fitz.

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Fitz, B.M., Lyon, L. & Driskell, R. Why People Like Where They Live: Individual- and Community-Level Contributors to Community Satisfaction. Soc Indic Res 126, 1209–1224 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-0922-9

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