'Social incivility' concerns 1 in 4 Canadians: StatsCan

Vancouver residents are the most perturbed by party-hearty neighbours and people loitering in the streets, while residents of Calgary and Quebec City are the least peeved by such displays of "social incivility," according to a newly released Statistics Canada study of the country's 12 largest metropolises.

The survey published Tuesday asked Canadians whether they felt various "signs of crime" — what criminologists term incivility — were a problem in their neighbourhood.

From Halifax to Vancouver, only one Canadian in four reported perceiving incivility as a problem. But the rates vary among the dozen cities studied and according to the type of incivility.

Residents of Regina showed the most concern among the survey's respondents for vandalism, graffiti and litter, collectively called "physical" incivility. Twenty-three per cent of dwellers in the Saskatchewan capital noted a problem — above the national average of 16 per cent, and compared with just eight per cent of Quebec City residents who flagged physical incivility as an issue in their neighbourhood.

"These incivilities remind us that crime might be all around us and could potentially intrude into our lives," the study's author, Statistics Canada researcher Leslie-Anne Keown, writes.

"For instance, garbage and litter strewn on the streets may serve as an indication that an area is not well cared for and that it may encourage illegal activities like drug dealing; as such, the place may seem threatening and increase our concern for our safety."

Quebec City came up doubly cool-headed in the study's second major area of investigation, "social" incivility, a category that asks whether residents feel bothered by noisy neighbours and loud parties, loitering in the streets, drug use and dealing, public drunkenness, prostitution, and people sleeping in the streets.

Residents of Quebec City, along with Calgary, were the least disturbed by these urban phenomena: only 16 per cent reported a problem, below the national average of 21 per cent. Vancouverites and Haligonians, at 26 per cent and 25 per cent, had the highest rates of concern.

"A person's perceptions of incivility in their local area arise from a constellation of influences," Keown writes, "including personal experience, the tone of media reports about the 'crime' problem in the city and/or neighbourhood, and the anecdotes recounted by significant people in the person's life.

"Regardless of their origin, these perceptions play a central role in fear of crime and, subsequently, in citizens' demands that government and criminal justice institutions solve the 'crime problem.' "

Suburbs vs. downtown

The biggest differences in perceptions of the "signs of crime," the study finds, are in the urban-suburban divide. People living in high-density neighbourhoods close to the centre of the city — urban neighbourhoods, in other words — were far more likely to complain of a form of incivility than residents of suburbs.

In Montreal, for example, 43 per cent of people in urban areas said they had a problem with at least one type of social incivility in their neighbourhood, whereas only 13 per cent of suburbanites complained of uncivil behaviour like public drunkenness and loitering.

And in Toronto, 51 per cent of urban dwellers were rankled by social incivility, compared with 15 per cent of those living in the city's suburbs.

"The presence of large numbers of strangers and the wide array and number of interactions that occur in high-density areas could increase the likelihood of residents observing disruptive behaviour," Keown explains.

The Statistics Canada study is based on a 2004 survey of 11,000 people age 15 and up in the country's 12 largest metropolitan areas, which together have 13.9 million residents. The results, Keown cautions, are not statistically significant for all inter-city comparisons.