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Does Sense of Community Matter in Community Well-Being?

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Social Factors and Community Well-Being

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research ((BRIEFSWELLBEING))

Abstract

This paper compares one vibrant grassroots community with its surrounding municipality in relation to subjective community well-being. Nested in Mapo municipality, Sungmisan is a small community formed from active community organizing and strong grassroots civic networks. Sungmisan has similar objective conditions—in terms of local public services, or, objective community well-being—to those of Mapo. Still, survey results show that Sungmisan residents were more satisfied with the local public services available in their community than were the Mapo residents with theirs, suggesting that objective community well-being does not always determine subjective community well-being. Community-level characteristics, such as sense of community, appear to be the most likely differentiating influence. Although sense of community was not established as a significant variable for subjective community well-being for Sungmisan, Sungmisan displayed high community-oriented characteristics, which was strikingly different from those of Mapo.

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Acknowledgments

This chapter was presentesd at the 3rd International Forum on Community Well-being on June 23rd, 2015 at the Hoam Faculty House, Seoul, South Korea and was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2013S1A3A2054622).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea

    Youngwha Kee

  2. Cornell Law School, New York, USA

    Chaebong Nam

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  1. Youngwha Kee
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  2. Chaebong Nam
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Correspondence to Youngwha Kee .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Youngwha Kee

  2. Grad Sch of Public Admin, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Seung Jong Lee

  3. Honors College, Duhme Rm 134, Purdue Univ, Windsor Halls, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

    Rhonda Phillips

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Kee, Y., Nam, C. (2016). Does Sense of Community Matter in Community Well-Being?. In: Kee, Y., Lee, S., Phillips, R. (eds) Social Factors and Community Well-Being. SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29942-6_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29942-6_3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-29940-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-29942-6

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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