A multidimensional measure of neighboring

The study reports the development of a short and easily administered questionnaire aiming at measuring dimensions of social life within neighborhoods. Principal-components analysis consistently extracted four factors replicated in three independent samples (N=96 to 1,060). The factors emerged as theoretically meaningful dimensions tapping the concepts of supportive acts of neighboring, neighbor annoyance, neighborhood attachment, and weak social ties. Factor invariance and factor replicability were high. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity yielded acceptable results. The principal virtue of the measure is that it may be applied to discern qualitative differences between neighborhoods by simultaneous assessments of several dimensions of neighboring. This research was financially supported by The Norwegian National Research Council. We thank Jostein Rise for valuable comments, and David R. Jacobs, Jr., and Melanie Young for advice in translating the questionnaire.