PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS IN SENSE OF COMMUNITY New Urbanist Kentlands

logical University. His areas of interest are effects of physical environment on people, service learning, design review, and new urbanism. RACHEL KAPLAN has long studied the role of the natural environment in human well-being and participation in environmental decision making. She currently is par-ticularly interested in understanding environments that bring out the best in people. ABSTRACT: Sense of community is often mentioned as an asset of new urbanism. The purpose of the study was to explore this claim by comparing Kentlands, a proto-typic new urbanist community, with a traditional suburban development near it. Four domains of sense of community were examined, each in terms of 17 distinct aspects of the physical environment, through surveys as well as interviews with residents. The findings suggest that Kentlands residents perceive substantially greater sense of com-munity; they express stronger attachment to their community and sense of identity with it. Natural features and open spaces play a particularly important role in sense of community and Kentlands provides a rich variety of these, fostering pedestrianism and increasing the likelihood of social interactions. The overall layout of the commu-nity and traditional architectural style, as well as many other physical features, play vital functions in achieving sense of communit