Villages in the City – Urban Planning for Neighbourhood Love

Karima Kourtit, Peter Nijkamp, Umut Turk and Mia Wahlström

Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 2024, vol. 115, issue 4, 518-536

Abstract: The city comprises of a wide variety of heterogeneous territorial units (e.g. districts or neighbourhoods). In many – especially larger – cities, social capital assets (like community bonds) are mirrored at the level of neighbourhoods which form the home for many sociocultural communities or distinct socio‐economic classes. We postulate in this study that the big city is essentially an ‘archipelago’ made up of ‘urban villages’. We analyse the residents' perceived attractiveness regarding their daily local neighbourhood by introducing the concept of ‘village love’ (or ‘neighbourhood love’), inspired by the recent literature on ‘city love’ (comprising ‘body’, ‘soul’ and ‘community’ constituents of urban life). Based on an extensive and detailed multi‐annual database for all neighbourhoods in Rotterdam, the present paper seeks to identify the background factors shaping ‘village love’ in the city, with particular attention to the citizens' subjective appreciation for and access to a great variety of (physical and immaterial) urban amenities shaping the place‐based satisfaction of residents. The theoretical framing of our research resembles the basics of traditional central place theory here transmitted to the urban space in which local proximity to amenities plays a key role. A wide array of relevant amenities impacting on the place‐specific well‐being feelings (‘village love’) of residents in various neighbourhoods in the city of Rotterdam is distinguished using inter alia‐rich multi‐annual survey data. This approach is empirically tested and verified by means of LISA statistics and advanced spatial econometric dependence models (‘urbanometrics’). The findings confirm the usefulness of a central place interpretation of ‘urban village love’ in the city.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/tesg.12618

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:tvecsg:v:115:y:2024:i:4:p:518-536

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0040-747X

Access Statistics for this article

Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie is currently edited by Jan van Weesep

More articles in Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie from Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().