Gender, economic context, perceptions of safety, and quality of life: a case study of Lowell, Massachusetts (U.S.A.), 1982-96.

From 1982 through 1996, 840 structured interviews about urban quality of life (QOL) were conducted with residents of Lowell, Massachusetts, by graduate students in a seminar about the city. Perceptions of safety and general QOL were analyzed by social status (gender) and social contexts (economic and historic) using multivariate and univariate ANOVAS. Main effects were obtained for gender, area income, and time. Subsequent analyses revealed that men felt safer than did women at night in neighborhoods and downtown, and that residents of lower income areas perceived both neighborhood QOL and safety more negatively than residents of higher income areas did. Small effects were found for downtown safety by area income in the opposite direction. Differences over time for downtown safety and city QOL (but not for neighborhood) suggest that the early and mid-1980s were viewed somewhat more favorably than the 1990s, with some improvement in the most recent period. Results suggest that economic context and time were related to perceived safety and QOL, though in different ways, whereas gender was related to perceived safety but not to QOL. Respondents' comments and community psychology principles are used to elaborate on and suggest interpretations for quantitative results.