Does Neighbourhood Design Influence Political Participation

How Does Neighbourhood Design Influence Political Participation?

Talk by Carrie LeVan
Montgoris Assistant Professor of Government at Colby College, Maine

Friday, March 24, 2023
3:30 - 5:30 pm

IN PERSON: SSC 6210
VIRTUAL: Please register through Zoom
https://westernuniversity.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcufuusqDkqHdBS_nnzi6lH_Ydx5F3W_cN8


Neighborhood design affects the environment, the physical and mental health of residents, the local economy, and social equity. Carrie Levan shows that neighborhood design also impacts civic health -residents' level of political engagement. She argues that neighbourhoods designed to isolate through single-use zoning and automobile­oriented street networks stifle civic engagement. However, pedestrian-centred and mixed-use neighbourhoods bring people together and help revitalize public life.

Using an innovative method for measuring neighborhood design - virtually "walking" over 850 census tracts across the United States in Google Streetview -she finds that neighborhood design directly affects Individual civic engagement. Levan shows that design disproportionately helps those with the greatest resource shortfalls -the poor, less educated, people of colour- overcome obstacles to low-cost participation, while doing little to promote low-cost forms of participation among people with greater access to resources. However, for these most privileged individuals, design matters for high cost forms of participation, like joining political groups. For this reason, neighbourhood design is a "helping hand" to those who need it, while benefiting everyone regardless of their socioeconomic status.

Presented by The Centre for Urban Policy and Local Governance