Two views of Binghamton, New York. The peaks and valleys of the right graph represent variation in the quality of neighborhoods, as assessed by students in grades 6-12.

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The Binghamton Neighborhood Project (BNP) is a collaboration between BU faculty and community partners to understand and improve the quality of life in our region. We are using the most recent social scientific theory and methods to measure and improve human welfare on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis.

The BNP is associated with EvoS, BU’s campus-wide evolutionary studies program. EvoS provides a theoretical framework and a network of over 50 faculty spanning over 15 departments. Other academic units associated with the BNP include BU's GIS (Geographical Information Systems) Center and the Center for Applied Community Research and Development (CACRD). The BNP has an office in BU's beautiful new Downtown Center.

Neighborhoods are important

The quality of life depends largely upon our daily interactions; how we are treated by our family, neighbors, and associates at school or work. This fact might seem obvious and is captured by the famous proverb “It takes a village to raise a child.” Yet, most psychological and social scientific research focuses on individuals, usually college students, without any regard to their local social environment. Taking the “obvious” fact seriously requires studying people from all walks of life as they go about their daily lives. Moreover, this kind of research must be fully collaborative, with the “subjects” (members of the community) interacting with the “scientists” during all phases.  The BNP is based upon these principles. 

Measuring developmental assets

One objective of the BNP is to measure the most important variables influencing the quality of life in our community. We have begun this effort by partnering with Search Institute (http://www.search-institute.org/), an independent non-profit organization whose mission is to “provide leadership, knowledge, and resources to promote healthy children, youth, and communities.” Search Institute has defined a number of “developmental assets,” which are described as follows:

The Developmental Asset framework is categorized into two groups of 20 assets. External assets are the positive experiences young people receive from the world around them. These 20 assets are about supporting and empowering young people, about setting boundaries and expectations, and about positive and constructive use of young people's time. External assets identify important roles that families, schools, congregations, neighborhoods, and youth organizations can play in promoting healthy development.

The twenty internal assets identify those characteristics and behaviors that reflect positive internal growth and development of young people. These assets are about positive values and identities, social competencies, and commitment to learning. The internal Developmental Assets will help these young people make thoughtful and positive choices and, in turn, be better prepared for situations in life that challenge their inner strength and confidence.

A survey called the Developmental Asset Profile (DAP) measures these assets and categorizes them into a number of subscales.  In collaboration with the Binghamton City School District, the DAP was administered to approximately 2000 students in grades 6-12 in May 2006. Background information on each student included residential address, enabling us to turn the information into maps with the help of GIS technology. Maps for the DAP subscales and a number of other variables are provided below. They demonstrate substantial differences among neighborhoods for variables that are highly relevant to the quality of life in our city .

Although Search Institute collaborates with many communities, we are the first to use GIS technology to visualize and study variation in developmental assets on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. We also intend to administer the DAP at 3-year intervals to study how developmental assets change over time in addition to space.

Expanding the GIS database

The beauty of GIS technology is that it can integrate all spatially based information, such as U.S. Census statistics and information gathered by local health, environmental, and social service agencies. For example, we can relate our DAP database to neighborhood variation in juvenile crime, academic performance, and physical health (such as obesity) by working with community partners to integrate their data with ours, linked by spatial location. The many agencies and organizations that comprise a city have an abundance of information, but it is rarely used to its full potential and even more rarely integrated with data from elsewhere. One goal of the BNP is to work with our community partners to create a comprehensive GIS database of information and to assist in the acquisition, organization, and analysis of data. 

A unified theoretical perspective

Information by itself is not enough. It must also be organized by a theoretical framework. The human-oriented sciences are notable for their lack of organization. Different fields (such as psychology, anthropology, sociology, and economics) consist of dozens of subfields and research programs that only partially communicate with each other. The BNP is more theoretically unified, thanks to EvoS. Evolutionary theory has organized knowledge in the biological sciences for decades, but inclusion of the human-oriented sciences is only now taking place. Visit the EvoS website to learn more about how evolutionary theory provides a “common language” for studying all aspects of the human condition, therefore providing an ideal framework for community-based research. Thanks to EvoS, our efforts to increase the quality of life in our region can draw upon the most recent advances in basic scientific research across a wide variety of disciplines. In addition, an empirical database such as the BNP is available for analysis from any theoretical perspective and we welcome the participation of scientists from a diversity of theoretical backgrounds.

The maps

Here is a sample of GIS maps showing how Binghamton neighborhoods vary for subscales of the DAP and other variables, which are described in more detail below. Each DAP subscale is normalized to a range of 0-100, so that a student who gives the lowest possible response for each question in the subscale receives a 0 and a student who gives the highest possible response receives a 100. The maps are generated by a method called kriging, in which every location is assigned an extrapolated value based on the surrounding data points, creating a continuous surface resembling a topographic map. Neighborhoods in which the average student scores high appear as “hills” (dark areas), compared to “valleys” (light areas) for neighborhoods in which the average student scores low. Some of the maps are 3-dimensional and others are 2-dimensional. The appearance of hills and valleys outside the city limits (represented by the black line) is an artifact of the GIS software searching for neighboring data points and finding them only within the city limits.

Notice that many of the maps have the same general appearance (i.e., the “hills” and “valleys” appear in roughly the same place). This is because the developmental assets tend to go together and mutually reinforce each other. For examples, youth who feel good about themselves (the personal subscale) tend to come from supportive neighborhoods (the community subscale) and perceive a supportive school environment (the school subscale) and so on. Even a variable as seemingly whimsical as holiday decorations, which was measured by a census of over 3500 houses during December 15-20, 2006, correlates with student responses to DAP items such as “I have neighbors who care.” The most supportive neighborhoods--as perceived by youth living in the neighborhoods--literally glow more brightly during the holiday season! Statistical analysis of this data is currently in progress.

Create your own maps!

Working with BU’s GIS Center, we have created a website that enables you to create your own maps from the BNP database, including US census statistics, the DAP, and other variables. Go to http://censusmap.binghamton.edu/broome_county, which works best on Internet Explorer at a 1024 x 768 screen resolution.

Become involved!

We think that the BNP can become a model of community-based research informed by modern scientific theory and methods. We welcome your involvement at a variety of levels.

• Agencies and organizations based in our area can become partners.
•  Individuals in our area can become involved in research on a volunteer basis.
• Individuals and funding organizations can support our efforts with a tax-deductable financial contribution. Even small donations can be put to very good use supporting the many projects that are under development.

Please contact the director, David Sloan Wilson, if you wish to explore possibilities.