Sense of Place and Feelings of Safety: Examining Young Adults’ Experiences of their Local Environment using Mobile Surveys

《Sense of Place and Feelings of Safety: Examining Young Adults’ Experiences of their Local Environment using Mobile Surveys》

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摘要: This study aims to examine feelings of safety and the correlates to feelings of decreased worry toward crime within individuals’ proximate environments. Data from adults living in Southeast Queensland (N = 72) were collected using a mobile application. Findings of a thematic analysis of these data suggest that safety perceptions are primarily driven by (a) physical features of the proximate environment, (b) social characteristics of a place, and (c) location familiarity or awareness. This study concludes with a discussion of how these themes may be leveraged to develop more focused fear‐reduction strategies that involve modifying features of the physical environment, improving social characteristics of place and increasing knowledge/awareness of place.