Developing the scale for evaluating residents neighborhood cohesion in Hutong

Hutong refers to a traditional alley space characterized by courtyard residences arranged along both sides. It represents a form of residential environment historically associated with frequent social interaction among residents. Neighborhood cohesion describes the strength of social bonds and the sense of solidarity within a community, which emerges through neighborhood-level social interaction and serves as an important indicator of interpersonal relationships among residents. However, there is a lack of measurement instruments specifically designed to assess neighborhood cohesion in Hutong contexts. Therefore, this study aims to develop a neighborhood cohesion instrument suitable for evaluating residents’ relationships in traditional alley-based residential environments. Initially, a conceptual instrument incorporating indicators of attraction to the neighborhood, neighboring, and sense of community was employed in a quantitative study. Following exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, the results identified emergent indicators, including social support, shared identity, and collective responsibility. The findings suggest that future research should adopt these emergent indicators when measuring neighborhood cohesion in Hutong settings and further refine the instrument through qualitative approaches.