Effects of changes in neighbourhood environment due to the CPTED project on residents’ social activities and sense of community: a case study on the Cheonan Safe Village Project in Korea

The purpose of this study is to analyse the effects of changes in neighbourhood environment due to the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) project on residents’ social activities and sense of community through a case study of Cheonan Safe Village Project. The study conducted an observing survey and questionnaire survey in order to collect data, and a total of 314 residents’ social activities and 502 surveys were used in analysis. The analysis results can be summarized as follows. First, after the CPTED project, residents’ social activities showed a sustained increase. Compared to before the project, social activities increased by 30.5% immediately after project completion, and by 90.4% at the 1 year after completing the project. Regarding different types of social activities, greetings and conversations between neighbours and children’s play activities showed a sustained increase around the areas where the physical environment changed due to the CPTED project. Second, compared to before the project, the changes perceived in characteristics of the neighbourhood environment showed a 13.7–18.5% increase in the quality of the pedestrian environment, 13.4–24.8% decrease in neighbourhood disorder and 12.7–21.9% decrease in fear of crime. Also, the sense of community increased by 5.4–7.9% after the CPTED project. Third, neighbourhood disorder, fear of crime and participation in neighbourhood activities were significantly correlated with a sense of community of residents. These results suggest the changes in the neighbourhood environment due to the CPTED project, combined with resident participation in neighbourhood activities, had positive effects on improving the sense of community and social ties among community members. The above results shows that changes in neighbourhood environment due to the CPTED project have a positive impact on residents’ social activities and sense of community as well as local crime safety.