2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

Progress in Data and Technology 93
fornia, Irvine, and the University of Minnesota, the questions cover four
domains: accessibility, pleasurability, perceived safety from traffic, and
perceived safety from crime. Examples of the questions’ topics include
sidewalk features, traffic signs, and land use. The protocols and training
presentations are available online. 7
Household Surveys
Often the information needed to understand community issues cannot be
captured by visual surveys alone. In addition to demographic, economic,
and social characteristics, household surveys allow analysts to capture
residents’ motivations and priorities, their opinions of the neighborhood,
and their views on the drivers of community conditions. Examples exist
from one-time surveys for a single neighborhood to long-term metropolitanwide
surveys. Like observational surveys, neighborhood surveys
have a wide range of purposes and statistical rigor. 8
Two surveys are illustrative of exemplary survey design and have introduced
innovative measures of neighborhood characteristics. The Project
on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods researched the various
factors that affect child and adolescent development, and the team
conducted a community survey as part of the study (Earls et al. 1995). 9
The survey measured the social and physical conditions in a probability
sample of neighborhoods in Chicago over 1994 and 1995. The researchers’
concepts of informal and formal social control and social cohesion have
been particularly influential on the field, and the questions related to those
ideas have been included in many subsequent surveys.
The Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Study sought to determine
the characteristics of supportive neighborhoods in Los Angeles
County, California. 10 In particular, it focused on various factors in
children’s development, welfare reform effects on neighborhoods, and
residential mobility and neighborhood change (Rand Corporation
n.d.). Its community survey was first conducted in 2000 and 2001,
with the latest wave in 2006 and 2008. The survey, conducted in a representative
sample of neighborhoods, covered many topics: household
composition, social and economic indicators, health status, participation
in public and private assistance programs, mobility, and social
ties and social support. Unlike many surveys, the survey followed both
neighborhoods and families over time. This meant that families who
were interviewed in the first round were interviewed in the second,