29 Sep What attaches people to communities? [Updated]

Arts policy gadfly and longtime Contrarian friend Andrew Terris commends to our attention a new US study on community attachment, also reported in this morning’s Globe and Mail. The Soul of Community study found that money and jobs are not what binds people to place; rather, it’s matters of the heart—things like like aesthetics, openness, and ease of social gatherings. Money quotes:

After interviewing close to 28,000 people in 26 communities over two years, the study has found that three main qualities bind people to place: social offerings such as entertainment venues and places to meet – the top factor in 21 of 26 communities, openness (how welcoming a place is) and the area’s aesthetics (its physical beauty and green spaces).  Access to quality education – whether at the elementary, secondary or college level – was also an important factor…

The top three qualities remained strong over two years of polling, unaffected by the national economic crisis. The levels of residents’ emotional attachment to their towns also remained steady … The study also looked at the relationship between how passionate and loyal people are to their communities and local economic growth.  Researchers did find a significant relationship between the two.  For example, from 2002-06, the most attached communities had the highest local GDP growth.

So perhaps the worst thing to happen to Cape Breton in the last quarter of the 20th Century was not the death of Sysco, but the political compromise that moved Cape Breton University from the heart of downtown Sydney to its current, lonely location halfway to Glace Bay.

The CBU campus is now so big, and so developed, it’s not practical to move it back. But why not move the rapidly growing Marconi Campus of the Nova Scotia Community College downtown, as the Chamber of Commerce has proposed? The cleaned-up site of the Tar Ponds and the steel plant would make a perfect location. Properly planned and executed, such a move could help reintegrate Whitney Pier, Ashby, and the North End of Sydney.