Custodians and Custodianship in Urban Neighborhoods

Abstract

The paper introduces a methodology for using a city’s administrative data to study custodianship, or those behaviors aimed at preventing physical disorder in the public space. Custodianship was operationalized through requests for city services regarding public maintenance (e.g., potholes), provided by the database generated by Boston, MA’s hotline for requesting city services (i.e., 311). Users can register with the system, permitting analysis of individual differences in custodianship ( N = 12,361), including frequency of reports, variety of issues reported, and geographical range of reports. Home location (available for N = 7,433) was combined with Census statistics to infer demographic characteristics. Most (76%) reported one case. There was no evidence that individuals specialize on a single type of issue. Most reported issues over a narrow geographic range (80% within 2 blocks of home). Homeowners were three times more likely than renters to report public issues. A technique for estimating the home locations of users is also tested.