Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods: Community Survey With Census Tracts, 1994-1995 (ICPSR 25762)
Version Date: Sep 18, 2013 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Felton J. Earls, Harvard Medical School;
Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Columbia University. Teacher's College. Center for the Study of Children and Families;
Stephen W. Raudenbush, University of Michigan. School of Education, and Survey Research Center;
Robert J. Sampson, Harvard University. Department of Sociology
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR25762.v1
Version V1
This version of the data collection is no longer distributed by ICPSR.
Summary View help for Summary
The Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods is an interdisciplinary study aimed at deepening society's understanding of the causes and pathways of juvenile delinquency, adult crime, substance abuse, and violence. In particular, it is a study of children's social and psychological development from birth to young adulthood in urban neighborhoods. This collection contains data from a cross-sectional survey of Chicago residents in 1994 and is the first product of an eight-year project. The survey gathered information from adult residents of Chicago on their perceptions of the neighborhoods in which they live. The survey questionnaire was a multidimensional assessment of the structural conditions and organization of the neighborhoods. Data collection consisted of a household interview of residents aged 18 and older to assess key neighborhood dimensions, including the dynamic structure of the local community, organizational and political structure, cultural values, informal social control, formal social control, and social cohesion. Variables include measures of the best and worst aspects of living in Chicago, how long residents had lived in a particular neighborhood, characteristics of their neighborhood, including types of social service agencies available, and if they would consider moving to a different neighborhood and why. Other community variables measure the relationships among neighbors, including how many neighbors a respondent would recognize, how often neighbors socialized, and how often neighbors participated in other activities together. Variables that capture neighborhood social order include respondents' perceptions of neighborhood problems such as litter, graffiti, drinking, drugs, and excessive use of force by police. Respondents were also asked about their normative beliefs regarding violence, money, and various children's behaviors. Victimization variables cover how often the respondent was the victim of a fight with a weapon, a violent argument, a gang fight, sexual assault, robbery, theft, or vandalism. Other variables measure fear of crime and attitudes toward the police. Demographic variables include age, gender, education, living arrangement, national origin, and employment status. In addition, a number of scales created by the study's scientific directors are included such as social disorder, perceived neighborhood danger, and neighborhood activism. The data in this study contain individual responses to survey questions and are nearly identical to the data in Part 1 (Individual-Level Data) of PROJECT ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN CHICAGO NEIGHBORHOODS: COMMUNITY SURVEY, 1994-1995 [ICPSR 2766]. The differences in the two data files are in the variables TRACTBNA (census tract number), RC_NUM (respondent number), and LINK_NC (ICPSR NC identifier to link to community data). The variable TRACTBNA has been unmasked while the variables RC_NUM and LINK_NC have been reassigned in order to make available the census tract variable and to remove the link to other studies in the PHDCN series.
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Funding View help for Funding
Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Restrictions View help for Restrictions
To protect respondent privacy, the data are restricted from general dissemination. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete an Agreement for the Use of Confidential Data, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research. Apply for access to these data through the ICPSR Restricted Data Contract Portal, which can be accessed via the study home page.
Researchers are encouraged to also consult the NACJD Restricted Data page for additional information about restricted data.
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods is an interdisciplinary study aimed at deepening society's understanding of the causes and pathways of juvenile delinquency, adult crime, substance abuse, and violence. In particular, it is a study of children's social and psychological development from birth to young adulthood in urban neighborhoods. The project sought to answer the following questions: (1) Why does one community have a high rate of crime, violence, and substance abuse, while a similar community nearby is relatively stable? (2) What factors enable some individuals to live successful, productive lives, even in high-risk neighborhoods? (3) Why does one young person experiment only briefly with delinquency, while another goes on to a criminal career? The survey gathered information from adult residents of Chicago on their perceptions of the neighborhoods in which they live. The researchers sought to use these data to create reliable and valid measures of neighborhood social context. Researchers were interested in measuring how neighborhood social organization related to crime, violence, and victimization. They also aimed to examine how neighborhood social organization was related to social disorder, cynicism regarding the legal system, dissatisfaction with the police, and tolerance of deviance.
Study Design View help for Study Design
The Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods was designed to administer a series of cross-sectional community studies in the same area and at the same time as a comprehensive longitudinal study on risk factors and manifestations of antisocial behavior and substance abuse. The overarching goal was to complete five or more annual waves of data collection over an eight-year period for multiple age groups, employing an accelerated longitudinal design, while simultaneously studying organizational changes in the urban context in which these young people were growing up. This data collection contains the first cross-sectional survey from this project. The survey questionnaire was a multidimensional assessment by Chicago residents of the structural conditions and organization of their neighborhoods in 1994. Neighborhoods were operationally defined as 343 clusters of census tracts, referred to as "neighborhood clusters." Data collection consisted of a household interview of residents aged 18 and older to assess key neighborhood dimensions, including the dynamic structure of the local community, organizational and political structure, cultural values, informal social control, formal social control, and social cohesion. The community survey instrument included measures of perceived crime and violence in the community, ratings of social order (gang activity, graffiti, unruly teens), normative beliefs about violence, and crime-specific indicators of victimization, available resources, norms, and social organization.
Sample View help for Sample
Stratified random sampling.
Universe View help for Universe
All adult residents of Chicago in 1994.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
City-level variables measure the best and worst aspects of living in Chicago for the interviewed residents. Variables relating to neighborhood structure include how residents define their neighborhoods, how long they have lived in a particular neighborhood, characteristics of their neighborhood, including types of social service agencies available, and if they would consider moving to a different neighborhood and why. Other community variables measure the relationships among neighbors, including how many neighbors a respondent would recognize, how often neighbors socialized, and how often neighbors participated in other activities together. Variables that capture neighborhood social order include respondents' perceptions of neighborhood problems such as litter, graffiti, drinking, drugs, and excessive use of force by police. Respondents were also asked about their normative beliefs regarding violence, money, and various children's behaviors. Victimization variables cover how often the respondent was the victim of a fight with a weapon, a violent argument, a gang fight, sexual assault, robbery, theft, or vandalism. Other variables measure fear of crime and attitudes toward the police. Demographic variables include age, gender, education, living arrangement, national origin, and employment status.
Response Rates View help for Response Rates
Not available.
Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales
Several Likert-type scales were used.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2009-07-07
Version History View help for Version History
2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
- Earls, Felton J., Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Stephen W. Raudenbush, and Robert J. Sampson. Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods: Community Survey With Census Tracts, 1994-1995. ICPSR25762-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2009-07-07. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR25762.v1
2009-07-07 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.