Social ties, environmental perception, and local attachment

This article investigates the determinants of place attachment. The community of limited liability argues that local attachment is the result of local relationships neighbors develop through time. The liberated community argues that only a minority of individual social ties are local. Therefore, people will not experience attachment. The authors argue that local attachment might result from a positive perception of the neighborhood environment. Using a randomly selected sample from one large city in Israel, the differential contributions of these models to the understanding of local attachment are investigated. The results show that attachment to place is expressed by a majority of urban residents. The higher the number of close friends and neighbors that are known and live nearby, the higher the attachment to the neighborhood. Perceptions of the local environment have a direct and independent effect of neighborhood attachment. Implications for the understanding of place attachment are discussed.