Abstract
This study addresses the research question: ‘What factors encourage neighbourhood associations to assume the roles of a service provider and a local government partner in urban governance?’ For that purpose, a survey with the title ‘Understanding the Roles of Neighbourhood Associations in Urban Governance’ was conducted with 154 representatives of neighbourhood associations in Seoul. Social capital theory, government failure theory, and third-party government theory offered a starting point in formulating hypotheses on the relationships between neighbourhood interactions, community characteristics, and the roles played by neighbourhood associations. This study finds that the social capital created by neighbourhood interactions and community characteristics facilitates neighbourhood associations to play the roles in urban governance.
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Notes
Nelson (2005) categorised homeowner association as a subtype of neighbourhood association. This research follows Nelson’s category of neighbourhood association. As such, this research replaces homeowner associations with neighbourhood associations in order to reduce confusion and to clarify terminology. For example, Groves (2006), McCabe (2005, 2011), McCabe and Tao (2006), McKenzie (1998), Sheller (2014) and Tao and McCabe (2012) used homeowner association in their researches, but this article used neighbourhood associations for homeowner association.
SMG refers to the city government of Seoul. Officially, the Seoul city government uses the term SMG to refer to the municipality of Seoul. The city of Seoul has a three-tier administrative structure. The highest layer of government is SMG, which comprises 25 district governments, with a mayor-council form as a sub-unit of government. Each district government has several dongs, which is the basic unit of administrative system.
A social group is a resident-initiated and membership-based organisation designed to pursue a certain activity, such as volunteering, sports games, or book reading. As a subgroup of the association, social groups are organised for a particular purpose, such as a sports activity, senior fellowship, and hobby. By engaging in a social group, residents not only seek their preferred activities or hobbies, but also share common issues with their neighbours. Community facility refers to the place for community activities, such as community meeting, community festival, and sports activities.
The term ‘homeowner’ in this study refers to a person who owns and lives a unit in an apartment complex. The independent variable of ‘homeownership’ is included in the survey in this study, and it is expressed in the percentage of homeowners who live and own a unit in the apartment complex.
The survey was structured in multiple stages to ensure its clarity, validity, and reliability (Babbie 1992; Singleton and Straits 2010). I constructed a draft of the survey based on literature on neighbourhood and homeowner associations, surveys on the associations, as well as preliminary interviews with public officials of SMG and the district governments, and board members of the associations and key members of the social groups supported by the associations in Seoul. Faculty members at the University of North Texas, Ph.D. students studying public administration and community development, survey research experts and laypersons reviewed and pre-tested the questionnaire. Based on their comments and recommendations, some parts of surveys were redesigned, revised, and rearranged to clarify questions and terms.
In 2014, the number of apartment complexes in Seoul was 4150. Among the apartment complexes, SMG registered 2276 NAs. SMG encourages the associations to register to promote transparency, provide administrative support, and develop a livable community.
The sampling process was as follows: Altogether 2276 SMG-registered NAs were identified. Due to resource limitations, a smaller sample was needed and reduced the number of a manageable size of 150. Stratified sampling was used to narrow the original population to 150, using community size as the framework for the stratification. In all, 154 associations took part in the study, sufficient for running the necessary negative binomial and Poisson analyses. Three sample groups were identified, and contacts were made. The first sample was the main one, while the second and the third were alternative samples. When a designated subject in the first sample rejected or did not respond to the request for participation, another subject from the second sample group, of the same or similar community size replaced the subject in the first sample. For example, investigators contacted 150 NAs from the first sample. If a NA did not reply to or rejected the request to participate in a survey interview, the investigators contacted another NA, from the second sample of the same or similar community size. If no alternative subject could be included from the second sample, a subject was selected from the third sample.
An initial phone call was made to request participation in the survey. The investigators then visited the office of the associations that had agreed to participate. To increase the response rate, one or two phone calls were made to request answers to the survey questionnaire.
Neo Data is located at 70 Samildaero 2, Junggu, Seoul, South Korea.
The SMG-operated website for collective housing (http://openapt.seoul.go.kr/apt/mvn/mvnUsr.do) was reviewed to confirm the exact community size for each apartment complex. If the number provided on the website did not match the survey answer, the value provided in the survey was used in the analysis.
The Institute for Digital Research and Education at UCLA (n.d.a) indicates that the negative binominal test is appropriate when the likelihood-ratio (LR) test is statistically significant.
According to the Institute for Digital Research and Education at UCLA (n.d.b), Poisson regression is proper when the likelihood-ratio (LR) test for deviance goodness of fit is not statistically significant.
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Kim, J. What are the Factors Encouraging Neighbourhood Associations to Assume Roles in Urban Governance?. Voluntas 31, 359–374 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-018-0029-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-018-0029-4