Community and Behavior in Urban Environments

Abstract

This paper relates to the conference theme by focussing upon perceptual and behavioural responses to the social, political and built environment in urban ‘communities’ of varying density and character. It analyses the spatial, social, political, economic and semantic dimensions of ‘community’ as perceived by a large sample (587) of residents of a medium-sized southern English city(Portsmouth, Hampshire) both in high and low density environments within its boundaries. It is suggested in this paper that residents’ images of the built environment and the salience of ‘community’ both as an image and as a function of the socio-morphological environment, are functionally most meaningful and interrelated in high density contexts.