Evaluation of Neighborhood Quality

Abstract

Abstract Abstract Efforts to improve neighborhood quality assume that planners can distinguish good from bad neighborhoods and can isolate specific features that are related to overall quality. In this study one hundred clusters of three or four homes scattered through a metropolitan area were rated independently by the people who live there and by an architect-planner. Results show considerable disagreement on the ratings, with people who attended college agreeing with the planner more closely than those with less education. The best single predictor of how well people like a neighborhood is the maintenance level of the structures as rated by the architect-planner.