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Understanding Local Environmental Concern: The Importance of Place
Author(s) -
Armstrong Andrea,
Stedman Richard C.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
rural sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.083
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1549-0831
pISSN - 0036-0112
DOI - 10.1111/ruso.12215
Subject(s) - residence , urbanity , rurality , amenity , place attachment , geography , rural area , socioeconomics , economic growth , sociology , psychology , political science , social psychology , demography , economy , economics , law
Urban‐rural differences in environmental concern are the primary way that place has been conceptualized within the social bases of environmental concern framework, yet there has been little convergence in empirical findings to support such differences. We assess the influence of place of permanent residence and other sociodemographic measures of the social bases of environmental concern approach alongside two social‐psychological constructs: place attachment and place outlook. Our work focuses on second homeowners in three rural, natural amenity communities of the northeastern United States ( n = 405). Second homeowners who permanently reside in rural places exhibited lower levels of local environmental concern about their second home area than suburban and urban residents, when “rural” was defined at the county scale. We did not observe differences in local environmental concern based upon urban‐suburban‐rural permanent residence when place of permanent residence was defined at the tract, block group, or zip code levels. Place attachment and place outlook explain more variance in local environmental concern than all sociodemographic indicators combined. Our findings suggest that second homeowners' local environmental concern is not strongly or consistently shaped by the urbanity or rurality of their permanent residence, but that place‐based, social‐psychological constructs may offer mechanisms through which social‐structural forces shape environmental concern.