Northern California Community Study, 1977

The Northern California Community Study investigated the effects of urbanism on social networks and social attitudes. To do so, the study explored the relationship between characteristics and perceptions of neighborhoods, and the acquaintance patterns, social activities, and psychological attitudes of residents of particular neighborhoods in the San Francisco area in 1977. The study focused on the nonminority population. Part 1 (Respondent File) includes information obtained in personal interviews with 1,050 persons living in 50 communities in northern California. Included in this file are two general categories of variables--those describing the respondents' experiences in their neighborhoods and locales, and those recording the respondents' psychological states and feelings of well-being. Part 2 (Name File) contains information about 19,417 persons identified by the survey respondents in Part 1 as being part of their (respondents') social networks. Variables include whether the named individuals lived in the respondents' neighborhoods, and the types of relationships, interactions, and things in common that the respondents had with the individuals they named. Part 3 (Community File) contains a data record prepared for each tract of the sampling frame. The data in the Community file are summary counts for each tract's total population, total household population, total housing units, and selected demographic information, such as the percentage of Black population, percent residing in group quarters, and mean family income. The file also contains opinions gathered from the survey respondents about each community, e.g., ratings of local services, fear of crime, and the effect of the water shortage.