ON NEIGHBORHOOD

Community & Neighborhood

• Lacking of neighborly people in urban settings: long-time residents, with

kids, old, working class, and similar to others.
• neighborhood matters when: functional interdependence, prior relationships,
and lack of alternatives;
• Social ties under geographic proximity in cities is less important in individual
social networks, as urbanism allows more connections with others than
locality alone.

• Spatial proximity ?
• Social homogeneity ?
• Need for mutual support ?
»cohousing
 PHYSICAL

Subjective Objective

SOCIAL
 Agency vs. Structure in Sociology debate

Nature vs. Nurture

Genetics, the actual shape of the brain,
instincts, or other in-born factors
The capacity of individuals to act
independently and to make their own
free choices.
No instincts exist. You are the sum of what
others and the environment have socialized
you to be.
The recurrent patterned arrangements which
influence or limit the choices and opportunities
that individuals possess
Social behavior

? ?
Agency
Social Spatial
Structure behavior patterns

Two major research questions:

Is there a spatial pattern in a certain social behavior?

What has caused this inter-relationship?
Concentric zones
US Case - Gentrification

Gentrification debates :
Agent: consumption preference (Jager 1986; Ley 1986),
Structural: production-side explanations (Smith 1979;
1986).

Why is central Paris rich and downtown Detroit poor?

An amenity-based theory - the center of Paris has more history and

amenity which attract those who can afford. Jan K. Brueckner, Jacques-
François Thisse, Yves Zenou

Public Transportation theory - Paris has subsidized public transit

service so people can live far away Edward Glaser
 Social environment

Social Physical
environment environment

Structure
Social
Behavior
Agency

HOW do you
study?
 Social Behavior

Social Physical
environment environment

Social Behavior

Whyte, W. H. (1980). The social life of small urban

spaces. Washington, D.C.: Conservation Foundation.

“The street is the river of life of the city, the place

where we come together, the pathway to the center.”

The social life of small urban spaces

 Social Physical
environment environment

Social Behavior
• Lynch, K. (1960). The Image of the City.
Cambridge: The MIT Press.
• human perception of the physical form as the
conceptual basis for good urban design
• Mental Maps:
– paths, edges, districts, nodes, landmarks,
 Social Physical
environment environment

Social Behavior

Jacobs, J. (1961).
The death and life of great American cities. New York:
Vintage Books.

• … urban renewal … destroyed communities and

created isolated, unnatural urban spaces. Jacobs
advocated … dense, mixed-use neighborhoods.
 Social Physical
environment environment

Social Behavior Space Syntax

5 4
3
4
4
3 4

1 2
 Social Physical
environment environment

Social Behavior

Social psychology –how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are

influenced by other people

– Stanley Milgram Experiment - Will people obey orders, even if clearly

dangerous?
– Asch Experiment - Will people conform to group behavior?
– Stanford Prison Experiment - How does people react to roles? Will you
behave differently?
– Good Samaritan Experiment - Would you help a stranger? - Explaining
helping behavior
 Social Physical
environment environment

Social Behavior

•Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone : the

collapse and revival of American community.
New York: Simon & Schuster.

•nearly 500,000 interviews … show that we

sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer
organizations that meet, know our neighbors
less, meet with friends less frequently, and
even socialize with our families less often. …
how changes in work, family structure, age,
suburban life, television, computers,
women's roles and other factors have
contributed to this decline.
Social capital index used in “Bowling Alone”

The Social Capital Index is composed of the following fourteen indicators:

• Agree that "I spend a lot of time visiting friends"
• Agree that "Most people can be trusted"
• Agree that "Most people are honest"
• Attendance at any public meeting on town or school affairs in last year (percent)
• Number of civic and social organizations per 1000 population
• Average number of club meetings attended in last year
• Average number of group memberships
• Average number of times volunteered in last year
• Average number of times entertained at home in last year
• Average number of times worked on community project in last year
• Number of non-profit (501[c]3) organizations per 1000 population
• Served as officer of some club or organization in last year (percent)
• Served on committee of some local organization in last year (percent)
• Turnout in presidential elections
 Social behavior

Social
behavior ? Neighborhood

How does neighborhood composition related to certain social

behavior?
What has caused this inter-relationship?
 Neighborhood effects vs. individual outcomes

• Racial Discrimination
• Public Health
• Incentives
• Gender Differences
• Educational Quality
• Corruption
• Learning and Social Effects
• Housing Experiments
• Voting Behavior
Neighborhood effect - Sociological models

Collective socialization

Interaction of individuals with role

models or community networks;
role of language and religion;
Neighborhood effect - Sociological models

• Contagion – epidemic theory

• a few broken windows; or trash on the
streets; one example of disorder, like
graffiti or littering, can indeed encourage
another.
• as communities begin to decline, the
increases in social pathologies should
be nonlinear among residents,
disproportionately affecting those at the
lowest end of the distribution.
 Neighborhood effect - Economic models

• Stratification of income groups socio-economic outcomes

• Individual human capital accumulation
– Family effects
– Neighborhood effects
• Peer effects:
– individual behavior vs. non-conforming community behavior
 Neighborhood effect - Economic models
• Competition theory
• Winners has detrimental effect on the
other members of the community (zero
sum resource allocation)

Elinor Ostrom – common pool resources

The Tragedy of Commons

 Social behavior

Social
behavior ? Neighborhood
What is social policy?

Thomas Humphrey Marshall (1893-1981) Sociologist

Social policy is the use of political power to supersede,

supplant, supplement, or modify operations of the
economic system in order to achieve results which the
economic system would not achieve on its own.
Source: Social Policy in the Twentieth Century (Marshall, 1965)
Neighborhood effects – Policy implications

Benabou (1996)

Neighborhood sorting persistent inequality

Mixed communities is better in producing homogenization and
human capital accumulation system wide in the long run.