Place Attachment and the Neighborhood: A Case Study of Israel

Abstract

Increased interest has been shown in the study of attachment to place of residence. In this work, we adopted the comprehensive model of Scannell and Gifford (2010) to gain further insights into people’s attachment to their neighborhoods by means of the psychological elements of affect, cognition, and behavior. Our objectives were to: (1) verify the suitability of the structure of the three processes of attachment to the neighborhood; (2) identify differences in these processes based on reasons for living in the neighborhood, their perception of the neighborhood, and residential wellbeing and city size where the neighborhood is located; and (3) verify whether differences in the processes of place attachment are due to sociodemographic variables such as gender, religiosity, and length of residence. For this purpose, Israel was selected as a case study. A two-component structure of (1) behavioral component and (2) cognitive-emotional component was observed. It was found that reasons for living in a neighborhood are affected not only by the behavioral component, but mainly the cognitive-emotional component. People who perceived their neighborhood as high quality showed higher levels of attachment in these two components. The important aspects affecting development of cognitive-emotional place attachment were residential well-being, perceiving the neighborhood as high quality, and city size. Our findings can contribute to enhancing understandings of place attachment, in general, and the neighborhood, in particular.