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Comparing Rural and Urban Children's Perceptions of an Ideal Community

Urban and Regional Planning Program and the Landscape Architecture Program at Michigan State University

Sissi Patricia Bruch

Landscape Architecture Program at Michigan State University

Rachel Kuipers

Masters of Environmental Design Program at Michigan State University

While there is research on children's participation, what is needed are investigations on how children perceive community design and whether the geographic location in which the children live has an effect on their perceptions of an ideal community. The objectives of this study are to (1) identify children's ideal community elements and (2) determine if there are any differences in rural and urban children's perceptions. Models of an ideal community are created by ninety-three rural children and fifty urban children in a design charrette. Model content is analyzed using multivariate statistics to identify element and pattern preferences. Principal component analysis of the resultant thirty-eight models reveals that for the rural children, six components are considered significant dimensions and explain 67 percent of the variance, with the first component accounting for nearly 27 percent of the variance. For the urban children, four components are significant and explain 51 percent of the variance, with the first component accounting for nearly 15 percent of the variance. Spatial diagrams indicate that there is a difference between the rural and urban models. Furthermore, discriminant analysis reveals that there is a statistical difference between the content of the urban and rural models at a significance level of .007.

Key Words: urban design • charrette • children's participation • design preferences

Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 28, No. 2, 143-160 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X08324719


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