Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-25-2015
Abstract
Cities are spatial concentrations of people and economic activities which create complex relationships. The focus of this research was to better understand the challenges of these interactions, the creation of a sense of community and the impact on the sense of well-being experienced by residents of inner city residents. Little research has been done to date on this. This qualitative study employs grounded theory to explore the lived experiences of residents in two inner city communities in the Caribbean. This study included a total of 44 interviews, 21 residents from the first or ‘prospering’ community and 21 residents from the second or ‘not so prospering’ community. 2 non-residents who were public officials in the second community were interviewed. Sense of community appears to be influenced by the active presence of elders both within the home and in the community. The participation by elders seems pivotal to community integration or disintegration which is reflected in the sense of well-being reported by residents. This is important to academicians as it addresses a key gap in the literature relative to the structure of communities. It is also important to practitioners who seek to understand and work at improving the quality of life and governing structures in inner-city communities.
Keywords
communities, management, Weatherhead School of Management, sense of community, subjective well-being, family, gangs, intergenerational closure, social capital
Rights
© The Author(s). This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Department/Center
Design & Innovation
Recommended Citation
Philip, Noble C., "A Tale of Two Communities: The Journey to Subjective Well-Being Via a Sense of Community" (2015). Student Scholarship. 66.
https://commons.case.edu/studentworks/66