Residential management of urban front-yard landscape: A random process?

In order to understand the management dynamics of urban residential vegetation at local scales, we studied nonvegetated areas and the vegetation composition, distribution and structure of front yards in 17 successive residential street sections of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve District, Montreal. We systematically sampled 646 front yards. A total of 250 descriptors were used to characterize the landscape (content) of every front yard. We then measured the similarity of vegetation and nonvegetated areas in each front yard in relation with distance for all street sections. Mantel correlograms allow us to examine the spatial structure of front-yard landscape at local scales. Results show that front-yard landscape is (1) an autocorrelated (or regionalized) variable, (2) that the spatial structure of the vegetation and nonvegetated areas is of contagious form and (3) that distribution and structure of the vegetation is the most repeated (copied) feature at local scales. A statistically distinct neighbor influence occurs among front yards in all street sections, which often exceeds the probability level p = 0.00001. This strong neighbor 'mimicry' effect has potential use in municipal environment improvement strategies that rely on resident actions. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science. All rights reserved.