Residential Satisfaction and Socioeconomic and Housing Characteristics of Urban Black Adults

Most studies directed at examining which factors within the residential environment best predict expressed satisfaction of residents use responses pertaining to the immediate physical and social environment. While earlier studies limited themselves to the physical environment alone (Cottam, 1951; Kennedy, 1950; Mogey & Morris, 1960; Riemer, 1945) and sometimes included the social environment as well (Fried & Gleicher, 1961; Gans, 1961; Wilner, Walkley, Pinkerton & Tayback, 1962), not until recently did studies begin to use attitudinal factors in the understanding of residential satisfaction. The perception of expressed satisfaction as an attitude, it is believed, could assist in further exploring linkages between satisfaction and social behavior (Francescato, Weidemann, & Anderson, 1987). In this regard, studies have attempted to predict satisfaction through the multivariate analyes of socioeconomic and demographic variables, as well as those relating to other personal characteristics of residents (Canter & Rees, 1982; Francescato, Weidemann, Anderson, & Chenoweth, 1974, 1979; Robinson, 1973-74). Not much work has been done on the residential satisfaction of Blacks. Thus, what one may refer to as constituting Blacks' ex-