Behavioural responses to neighbourhood reputations

Abstract

Workshop 1. Session 1.3: (Counter)acting stigma. Abstract: Urban neighbourhoods remain under the attention of politicians and scientists. Although it has been acknowledged that the lives of most (categories of) people are no longer centred around their area of residence, the idea that the neighbourhood context can have an influence on the life of its residents (the so-called neighbourhood effect) has not vanished. A lot of research has been carried out to study these neighbourhood effects. At the same time, research on the reputation of urban neighbourhoods has been thriving. However the link between neighbourhood effects and negative neighbourhood reputations has received little attention. Within the literature on neighbourhood effects, little attention is paid to the possible effect of the negative neighbourhood reputation on behaviour of residents (for exceptions see Bauder, 2002, Hastings and Dean, 2003). When reputation is taken into account, it focuses on the influence on attitudes and behaviour of non-residents. If attention is paid to the influence on the residents of these neighbourhoods, it is mostly connected to material- and psychological consequences of living in an infamous neighbourhood. Jobs are not offered because one lives in the wrong neighbourhood (Wilson, 1996), and people don’t receive mortgages from banks, or only against disadvantaged conditions (Aalbers, 2001). On behavioural responses of residents to the negative reputation of their neighbourhood, hardly any research has been carried out so far. We believe this link deserves more investigation. This paper gives an inventory of possible behavioural responses of individuals to negative neighbourhood reputations. Hirschman’s ‘Exit, voice and loyalty’ framework functions as a starting point to study three different behavioural responses (leaving the neighbourhood, attempting to change the neighbourhood, and maintaining social contacts).