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The Other Side of the Broken Window: A Methodology that Translates Building Permits into an Ecometric of Investment by Community Members
Author(s) -
O’Brien Daniel Tumminelli,
Montgomery Barrett W.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1007/s10464-014-9685-8
Subject(s) - operationalization , investment (military) , construct (python library) , reliability (semiconductor) , actuarial science , psychology , construct validity , public economics , business , applied psychology , economics , computer science , psychometrics , politics , political science , clinical psychology , philosophy , power (physics) , physics , epistemology , quantum mechanics , law , programming language
Much research has focused on physical disorder in urban neighborhoods as evidence that the community does not maintain local norms and spaces. Little attention has been paid to the opposite: indicators of proactive investment in the neighborhood’s upkeep. This manuscript presents a methodology that translates a database of approved building permits into an ecometric of investment by community members, establishing basic content, criteria for reliability, and construct validity. A database from Boston, MA contained 150,493 permits spanning 2.5 years, each record including the property to be modified, permit type, and date issued. Investment was operationalized as the proportion of properties in a census block group that underwent an addition or renovation, excluding larger developments involving the demolition or construction of a building. The reliability analysis found that robust measures could be generated every 6 months, and that longitudinal analysis could differentiate between trajectories across neighborhoods. The validity analysis supported two hypotheses: investment was best predicted by homeownership and median income; and maintained an independent relationship with measures of physical disorder despite controlling for demographics, implying that it captures the other end of a spectrum of neighborhood maintenance. Possible uses for the measure in research and policy are discussed.