Using small data to interpret big data: 311 reports as individual contributions to informal social control in urban neighborhoods.

Informal social control is considered a vital component of the well-being of urban communities. Though some argue that the actions that constitute this social process are often said to reflect territoriality, little else is known about how individuals contribute to it. The current study leverages a database of over 600,000 requests for government services received by the city of Boston, MA's 311 system as a way to answer such questions, focusing particularly on reports of issues in the public space arising from incivilities.

The other side of the broken window: a methodology that translates building permits into an ecometric of investment by community members.

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.

An evolutionary model of the environmental conditions that shape the development of prosociality.

The current review presents a model for how prosocial development is driven by sociocognitive mechanisms that have been shaped by natural selection to translate critical environmental factors into locally adaptive levels of prosociality. This is done through a synthesis of two existing literatures. Evolutionary developmental psychologists have demonstrated a biological basis for the emergence of prosocial behavior early in youth, and work based on social learning theory has explored how social experiences can influence prosociality across development.

Broken windows and low adolescent prosociality: not cause and consequence, but co-symptoms of low collective efficacy.

The current study presents a case in which adolescent prosociality is lower in neighborhoods with greater physical disorder. Current theory provides two interpretations for such a pattern: (1) that disorder signals a threatening environment and discourages prosociality ("broken windows theory"); (2) that disorder and low prosociality are both symptoms of a weak community (i.e.

Managing the urban commons: the relative influence of individual and social incentives on the treatment of public space.

All communities have common resources that are vulnerable to selfish motives. The current paper explores this challenge in the specific case of the urban commons, defined as the public spaces and scenery of city neighborhoods. A theoretical model differentiates between individual incentives and social incentives for caring for the commons.

Residential mobility and prosocial development within a single city.

Neighborhood social dynamics have been shown to impact behavioral development in residents, including levels of prosociality (i.e. positive social behavior).

Community perception: the ability to assess the safety of unfamiliar neighborhoods and respond adaptively.

When entering an unfamiliar neighborhood, adaptive social decisions are dependent on an accurate assessment of the local safety. Studies of cities have shown that the maintenance of physical structures is correlated with the strength of ties between neighbors, which in turn is responsible for the crime level. Thus it should be theoretically possible to intuit neighborhood safety through the physical structures alone.