Neighbouring patterns in Australian suburban housing developments

'Sense of community'and 'neighbouring'are two key concepts that are integral tosocial cohesion. Theyhave been the subject of extensive studies in several disciplines including sociology, psychology and built environment.Sense of community is used to describe a feeling of belonging and shared interests among members of a community. Neighbouring is used to refer to the activities engaged in byand betweenneighbours1. Although the physical qualities of neighbourhoodsand suburbsmay affect the formation of the sense of communityand neighbouring relationships, studies that focus on the contribution of the built environment are limited.According toSilverman (1986), a number of researchers have noted the importance of housing in predicting neighbouringbehaviour,but typically have not developed a full model to account for it2.To address this gap, thisstudy aims to evaluate the physical structure and characteristics ofsuburbs and how they contribute to neighbouring interactionsand sense of community.Three suburban residential streets in the City of Greater Geelong have been selectedfor this study. A short survey wasconducted inthesestreets to evaluate the intensity of interactionsbetween the neighbours that reside here. The intensity of neighbouring interactions and the pattern of relationships was documented through Appleyard's mapping technique3. The built environmentqualities have alsobeen assessed through extensive field studies and observations.This study will compare the physical qualities of the most successful and unsuccessful street in terms of the number and intensity of interactionsto discover how the built environment contributesto a sense of community in suburban developments