Twentieth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

Immigration changed sharply the physical and societal context of cities, giving rise to deprived, sub-urban areas in which newcomers and households co-exist as “neighbours-but-strangers”. While contemporary urban societies no longer depend on the town square for basic needs, good public space and local social interactions have long been considered fundamental for community health and wellbeing. Western European governments sought to tackle the uneven development of cities through the adoption of different urban regeneration schemes. This study focuses on two ethnic diverse Italian neighbourhoods, undergoing different types of regeneration strategy – “bottom-up” or community-inclusive versus “top down” or centralized – to examine if they affect differently four social psychological variables: residents’ perceived community participation, sense of community, place attachment and public place sociability. Moreover, it explored how perceived community participation predicts the use of public places for everyday sociability, examining the mediator roles of sense of community and place attachment and whether these effects would be moderated by residents’ endorsement of multiculturalism. A questionnaire survey (N=119) with native Italian residents, indicated that a) residents in the “bottom up” neighbourhood reported greater levels of sense of community, place attachment, public place sociability compared to the “top-down” neighbourhood, except for perceived community participation; b) the relationship between perceived community participation and place sociability is mediated by sense of community; and c) this positive indirect effect does not depend on residents’ multicultural ideology. Consequences and practical implications of considering community meanings to reverse neighbourhood decline and lack of social cohesion are discussed.