SOCIAL PARTICIPATION, PLACE IDENTITY, SOCIAL NETWORKS, AND SUPPORT AS PREDICTORS OF INTEGRATION AND NEEDS FULFILLMENTS IN AN URBAN NEIGHBOURHOOD

Abstract

In urban neighbourhoods, social participation, place identity, social networks, and support are crucial for fostering community cohesion and resilience. Although there is a widespread indication in the literature that these factors do predict integration and needs fulfillment, there are realizations that there is a need to explore how they also jointly predict interaction and needs fulfillment. The objective of the study therefore is to assess the relationship between these factors integration and fulfillment of needs in the context of the 2 broad house types in a typical residential neighbourhood:- Single-family and Multiple-family. The survey method was adopted in the study. The area was divided into nine distinct neighbourhoods based on the dominant house types. Questionnaires were administered to gather relevant data relating to the factors in consideration. The findings suggest that social participation, place identity, social networks, and support have a significant influence on neighbourhood integration and fulfillment of needs across single-family and multiple-family neighbourhoods. However, for single-family neighbourhoods, social participation is a marginally significant predictor while for multiple-family it indicates a highly significant predictor. Similarly, both place identity and social network demonstrate consistent association in both housing types but with social networks being positive in single-family whereby both place identity and social network should have a high significance in multiple-family neighbourhoods indicating their significant role in fostering a sense of integration in more densely populated neighbourhood settings.