Civic Responsibility and the Environment: Linking Local Conditions to Community Environmental Activeness

Abstract

In this article, we examine the extent to which variations in local social, economic, and spatial conditions might account for variation in community environmental activeness across 208 communities falling within nonmetropolitan areas in Mississippi. We use GIS technology to identify community boundaries, and use key informant and census data to measure community attributes. The findings indicate that community environmental activeness tends to be higher among communities that provide greater access to social capital. The level of community environmental activeness was also found to rest on the size of a community and its regional location. Community activeness increases with the size of community, but it decreases when a community is situated in an economically and socially disadvantaged region. Similarly, community activeness was found to be low in communities with low levels of education.

Keywords:

• civic responsibility
• community economic resources
• community environmental activeness
• community social capital
• community spatial identity
• key informants

Core funding for this research came from the 2001 Rural Sociological Society Early Career Award. Research for this article was also supported by Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station (MAFES, Project MIS-605080), Mississippi Research Office (Project MIS-257106), the Social Science Research Center, and the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at Mississippi State University. We acknowledge the intellectual contributions of the editor and the anonymous reviewers.

Notes

Note. The numbers reported in the columns are percentages.

^a A score of 1 indicates not active, 2 somewhat active, 3 active, and 4 very active.

^b A score of 1 indicates not at all satisfied, 2 not very satisfied, 3 somewhat satisfied, and 4 very satisfied.

Note. The numbers reported in parentheses are standard errors.

^a Significant at p < .001.

^b Significant at p < .01.

^c Significant at p < .05.

^d The F value was computed to compare the fitness of the model as variables were added.

1 The average daily travel time to reach final destinations is a function of the average velocity people can travel on existing transportation systems, comprised of roads, highways, and interstate highways (with an average speed of 30, 45, and 60 miles per hour, respectively). Thus, if an individual spends equal travel time on roads, highways, and interstates, his or her average speed is 45 miles per hour. Following this rationale, traditional 5- and 10-mile distances (“as the crow flies”) can be translated into an average daily travel time by expressing the latter as a function of the distance-velocity ratio T = D/V where T is the daily average travel time, D is the average distance in miles, and V is the average velocity per hour. Given that the estimated average velocity on an existing road system can be approximated to be 45 miles per hour, 5 and 10 miles in distance translates into 6.7 and 13.3 min of travel time, respectively. This means that, on average, an individual can cover five to ten miles in ten minutes travel time on an existing transportation system.

2 A key informant is an individual who is familiar with local activities through his or her experience. Informants provide information about the place in which they live, about others in the place, and about themselves. Key informants are generally privy to important events and are able to provide the researcher with reliable information about them (Krannich and Humphrey 1986; Parisi et al. 2000; Poggie 1972; Schwartz, Bridger, and Hyman 2001; Seidler 1974; Young 1999).

3 Recontacting individuals by telephone instead of by a reminder card is more effective in increasing the response rate, because it can help to determine if people are still willing to participate in the study. If they are not, new key informants can be identified in a timely fashion. In this study, we were unable to identify new key informants due to resource constraints.

4 The Delta region included the following counties: Bolivar, Carroll, Coahoma, Holmes, Humphreys, Issaquena, Leflore, Panola, Quitman, Sharkey, Sunflower, Tallahatchie, Tate, Tunica, Warren, Washington, and Yazoo.