A pilot scientific survey aimed at examining how people in Phoenix view their community and their environment has yielded some surprising – and tantalizing – results about the societal attitudes of the residents of America's fastest growing city.
The Phoenix Area Social Survey, an interdisciplinary research project developed by a team of Arizona State University sociology, environmental science and business researchers, examines issues of community and environment in specific neighborhoods in Phoenix, Arizona. The study is based on a survey conducted in 2002 by the ASU Department of Sociology's Survey Research Laboratory in conjunction with the ASU Center for Environmental Studies.
The survey examined six Phoenix neighborhoods, chosen to represent a range of geographic locations and socioeconomic backgrounds, and measured attitudes on a variety of issues, ranging from feelings about the local and regional community, to perspectives on the environment and the urban landscape.
Among the intriguing results was that Phoenix's newness has not prevented a strong sense of community among its residents. Though nearly one-quarter of city residents have lived in the Valley less than five years (and a much larger percentage have recently moved within the Valley), residents rapidly develop a sense of "belonging."
"High percentages of people report a sense of belonging at multiple geographic scales – everything from the neighborhood, to the city, to the Valley, to Arizona," said ASU Associate Professor of Sociology Sharon Harlan, the project's director. "Even though many are short-term residents who tend to move around a lot within the Phoenix area, they have built connections."
The survey found overall that Phoenix residents arrive at a full sense of "social cohesion" – identifying with and trusting neighbors – within two years of moving into a neighborhood. The development of "social ties" – relationships and networks with neighbors – peaks at four years.
"We think about strong communities growing organically – where people live in a neighborhood a long time, they connect with each other, and they build relationships, social ties, and common values," said Harlan. "That is what makes a healthy community over time. We are finding, at least in Phoenix, that it happens much faster than most of us would have expected."
The survey found some interesting differences between neighborhoods. While residents of virtually all neighborhoods rated the Valley, the City of Phoenix and their neighborhoods as good places to live, "upper-income people tend to be more loyal to their neighborhoods than to their city," noted Harlan. "That could be a location effect, since upper-income people tend to live out on the fringe. They are farther away from the city center and they may have a different view of the city than the middle- and lower-income people who live near the core."
Differing worries and complaints about the environment also were expressed by people in the surveyed neighborhoods.
People living in the higher-income neighborhoods were the most concerned about overcrowding, small lot sizes and land preservation, though these neighborhoods were located at the urban fringe where the lot sizes are large. Close to 35 percent of the higher-income neighborhood respondents thought that lot sizes in their neighborhoods were too small, as opposed to about five percent in the lower-income neighborhoods.
Upon further investigation, the researchers discovered that homes in the wealthiest neighborhoods are three times larger, on average, than homes in the poorest neighborhoods, and they take up a much larger proportion of the lots. Fifty percent of higher-income respondents say that housing density is too high and too little land is being preserved in the Valley, as opposed to less than 20 percent of lower-income respondents who hold these contradictory views.
And while all neighborhoods showed significant levels of concern about environmental problems such as air pollution, groundwater contamination and water supply, higher-income areas perceive these issues to be more "Valley problems," than issues that affect their own neighborhoods. Two to three times more lower- income respondents than higher-income respondents are "very concerned" with accidental industrial releases, soil contamination, amount of water used, and odors in their own neighborhoods.
Some significant environmental differences between homes in lower-income and upper-income neighborhoods were also measured by the survey, particularly in landscaping trends. While 70 percent of all respondents indicated a preference for greenery such as "well-watered grass and trees," a clear difference exists between neighborhoods in where the greenery is put.
Nearly 70 percent of higher-income respondents have desert front yards, as opposed to about 15 percent of lower-income respondents, who prefer lawns. Back yards, however, reverse the situation – only 20 percent of upper- and middle-income respondents have desert back yards (green "oasis" landscaping is the preferred option), while lower-income homes tend to have more desert landscaping in their back yard than front.
"Part of the difference may reflect a change in fashion between newer and older homes, or the landscaping rules of homeowners' associations in the wealthier neighborhoods." said Harlan. However, this does not mean that upper-income residents are having an unpopular landscape style forced upon them. The difference between the landscape people want and what they have, the survey found to be affected by income level, with higher-income residents reportedly happier with both their front and back yards.
The project is affiliated with the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research project, a National Science Foundation funded study. The multi-disciplinary research team for the Phoenix Area Social Survey includes Tom Rex from ASU's Center for Business Research; Diane Hope and Amy Nelson from ASU's Center for Environmental Studies; Andrew Kirby from the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at ASU West; Robert Bolin, Edward Hackett, Sharon Harlan and Shapard Wolf from ASU's Department of Sociology, and Larissa Larsen, formerly from ASU's School of Planning and Landscape Architecture. The project was funded by ASU's Office of the Vice Provost for Research, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Center for Environmental Studies and the Department of Sociology.
While a scientific survey on environmental concerns that is both neighborhood-specific and also citywide has never been done in the Phoenix area, Survey Research Laboratory Director Shapard Wolf points out that the findings are preliminary, due to the small number of neighborhoods surveyed. "Issues need to be followed further, and other questions need to be asked," he said. "Follow-up studies also need to be done to see if the attitudes measured change over time."
"One use of this data would be to measure the effect of public education campaigns--for instance, on conserving water and energy. We need to survey more of the Valley to establish baseline measures of current usage, so that we can measure change over time. We need to find some additional funding to expand this project to the rest of the Valley and repeat it periodically," he said.
For more details on survey results, contact Sharon Harlan at 480-727-6780 or at Sharon.Harlan@asu.edu. A full report on the study can be downloaded at http://www.asu.edu/clas/sociology/pass.html.
Sources: Sharon Harlan, 480-727-6780
Shapard Wolf, 480-965-5032
Tom Rex, 480-965-3961