IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i8p3200-d345854.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing Neighborhood Satisfaction and Social Capital in a Multi-Cultural Setting of an Abu Dhabi Neighborhood

Author

Listed:
  • Anfal Al-Ali

    (Graduate Student, Sustainable Critical Infrastructure Program, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi 127788, UAE)

  • Praveen Maghelal

    (Sustainable Critical Infrastructure Program, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi 127788, UAE)

  • Khaled Alawadi

    (Sustainable Critical Infrastructure Program, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi 127788, UAE)

Abstract

Behavioral research studies propose that urban open spaces contribute to enhance sociability in urban areas. The urban areas in the city of Abu Dhabi are less appealing to attract vibrant activity and social life. This study investigates the role of the built environment in the enhancement of neighborhood satisfaction and social capital in a residential neighborhood of Abu Dhabi. A total of 145 residents were surveyed for their perception, attitude, and behavior. Regression analyses to predict the role of the built environment of the open space, as well as the ethnicity of respondents, on measures of neighborhood satisfaction and social capital were performed. Spatial data and audit tools were used to assess the lack of suitable built-environment in the study area. Results indicate that improvements to the built environment can improve both the social capital and neighborhood satisfaction of the urban residents of Abu Dhabi. Implications of this study include recommendations to enhance the experience of urban spaces in arid regions like Abu Dhabi. Recommendations include adding landscape elements, providing a comfortable walking environment, adding attractive locations and destinations, and a clean and safe environment with attractive buildings or homes.

Suggested Citation

  • Anfal Al-Ali & Praveen Maghelal & Khaled Alawadi, 2020. "Assessing Neighborhood Satisfaction and Social Capital in a Multi-Cultural Setting of an Abu Dhabi Neighborhood," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-16, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:8:p:3200-:d:345854
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/8/3200/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/8/3200/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reid Ewing & Robert Cervero, 2010. "Travel and the Built Environment," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 76(3), pages 265-294.
    2. Luc Beal & Hugues Séraphin & Giuseppe Modica & Manuela Pilato & Marco Platania, 2019. "Analysing the Mediating Effect of Heritage Between Locals and Visitors: An Exploratory Study Using Mission Patrimoine as a Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-15, May.
    3. Saelens, B.E. & Sallis, J.F. & Black, J.B. & Chen, D., 2003. "Neighborhood-Based Differences in Physical Activity: An Environment Scale Evaluation," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(9), pages 1552-1558.
    4. Grootaert Grootaert & Deepa Narayan & Veronica Nyhan Jones & Michael Woolcock, 2004. "Measuring Social Capital : An Integrated Questionnaire," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15033.
    5. Khaled Alawadi, 2017. "Place attachment as a motivation for community preservation: The demise of an old, bustling, Dubai community," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(13), pages 2973-2997, October.
    6. Peterson, Robert A, 1994. "A Meta-analysis of Cronbach's Coefficient Alpha," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(2), pages 381-391, September.
    7. Daniel J. Phaneuf & V. Kerry Smith & Raymond B. Palmquist & Jaren C. Pope, 2008. "Integrating Property Value and Local Recreation Models to Value Ecosystem Services in Urban Watersheds," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 84(3), pages 361-381.
    8. Scoppa, Martin & Bawazir, Khawla & Alawadi, Khaled, 2019. "Straddling boundaries in superblock cities. Assessing local and global network connectivity using cases from Abu Dhabi, UAE," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 770-782.
    9. Khaled Alawadi & Sarah Dooling, 2016. "Challenges and opportunities for participatory planning approaches within Dubai’s urban context," Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 276-301, September.
    10. Khaled Alawadi & Ouafa Benkraouda, 2018. "What happened to Abu Dhabi’s urbanism? The question of regional integration," Journal of Urban Design, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(3), pages 367-394, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ahmed Alkhoori, Fatima & Kumar Maghelal, Praveen, 2021. "Regulating the overloading of heavy commercial Vehicles: Assessment of land transport operators in Abu Dhabi," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 287-299.
    2. Yazhuo Jiang & Li Chen & Yangyang Xie & Yang Li & Ting Li, 2023. "Subjective Well-Being of Historical Neighborhood Residents in Beijing: The Impact on the Residential Environment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-13, January.
    3. Minjung Cho, 2020. "Housing Workers’ Evaluations of Residential Environmental Quality in South Korean Welfare Housing for Low-Income, Single-Parent Families," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-23, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Scoppa, Martin & Bawazir, Khawla & Alawadi, Khaled, 2019. "Straddling boundaries in superblock cities. Assessing local and global network connectivity using cases from Abu Dhabi, UAE," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 770-782.
    2. Martin Scoppa & Rim Anabtawi, 2021. "Connectivity in Superblock Street Networks: Measuring Distance, Directness, and the Diversity of Pedestrian Paths," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-18, December.
    3. Kevin Credit & Elizabeth Mack, 2019. "Place-making and performance: The impact of walkable built environments on business performance in Phoenix and Boston," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 46(2), pages 264-285, February.
    4. Fernando Fonseca & Escolástica Fernandes & Rui Ramos, 2022. "Walkable Cities: Using the Smart Pedestrian Net Method for Evaluating a Pedestrian Network in Guimarães, Portugal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-23, August.
    5. Zimu Jia & Long Chen & Jingjia Chen & Guowei Lyu & Ding Zhou & Ying Long, 2020. "Urban modeling for streets using vector cellular automata: Framework and its application in Beijing," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 47(8), pages 1418-1439, October.
    6. Neatt, Kevin & Millward, Hugh & Spinney, Jamie, 2017. "Neighborhood walking densities: A multivariate analysis in Halifax, Canada," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 9-16.
    7. Bojing Liao & Yifan Xu & Xiang Li & Ji Li, 2022. "Association between Campus Walkability and Affective Walking Experience, and the Mediating Role of Walking Attitude," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-13, November.
    8. De Vos, Jonas, 2018. "Do people travel with their preferred travel mode? Analysing the extent of travel mode dissonance and its effect on travel satisfaction," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 261-274.
    9. Otsuka, Noriko & Wittowsky, Dirk & Damerau, Marlene & Gerten, Christian, 2021. "Walkability assessment for urban areas around railway stations along the Rhine-Alpine Corridor," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    10. Rongrong Zhang & Song Liu & Ming Li & Xiong He & Chunshan Zhou, 2021. "The Effect of High-Density Built Environments on Elderly Individuals’ Physical Health: A Cross-Sectional Study in Guangzhou, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-22, September.
    11. Shima Hamidi & Somayeh Moazzeni, 2019. "Examining the Relationship between Urban Design Qualities and Walking Behavior: Empirical Evidence from Dallas, TX," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-14, May.
    12. Young-Jae Kim & Ayoung Woo, 2016. "What’s the Score? Walkable Environments and Subsidized Households," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-20, April.
    13. Joreintje Dingena Mackenbach & Edward Randal & Pengjun Zhao & Philippa Howden-Chapman, 2016. "The Influence of Urban Land-Use and Public Transport Facilities on Active Commuting in Wellington, New Zealand: Active Transport Forecasting Using the WILUTE Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-14, March.
    14. Fernando Fonseca & George Papageorgiou & Simona Tondelli & Paulo Ribeiro & Elisa Conticelli & Mona Jabbari & Rui Ramos, 2022. "Perceived Walkability and Respective Urban Determinants: Insights from Bologna and Porto," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-19, July.
    15. Ivan Blečić & Tanja Congiu & Giovanna Fancello & Giuseppe Andrea Trunfio, 2020. "Planning and Design Support Tools for Walkability: A Guide for Urban Analysts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-18, May.
    16. YongJin Ahn & JiYoung Park & Tim A Bruckner & Simon Choi, 2018. "Do local employment centers modify the association between neighborhood urban form and individual obesity?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(5), pages 1128-1143, August.
    17. Schneider, Robert James, 2011. "Understanding Sustainable Transportation Choices: Shifting Routine Automobile Travel to Walking and Bicycling," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt06v2g6dh, University of California Transportation Center.
    18. Kenneth Joh & Sandip Chakrabarti & Marlon G. Boarnet & Ayoung Woo, 2015. "The Walking Renaissance: A Longitudinal Analysis of Walking Travel in the Greater Los Angeles Area, USA," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(7), pages 1-27, July.
    19. Hudyeron Rocha & Manuel Filgueiras & José Pedro Tavares & Sara Ferreira, 2023. "Public Transport Usage and Perceived Service Quality in a Large Metropolitan Area: The Case of Porto," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-15, April.
    20. Lizhen Zhao & Zhenjiang Shen & Yanji Zhang & Fubin Sheng, 2019. "Study on the Impact of the Objective Characteristics and Subjective Perception of the Built Environment on Residents’ Physical Activities in Fuzhou, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-14, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:8:p:3200-:d:345854. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.