Neighbors and Neighborhoods

Elements of Successful Community Design

Sidney Brower

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781351177405
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

How does the design of a neighborhood affect the people who live there? In this thoughtful, engaging book, the author explains how a neighborhood's design lays the groundwork for the social relationships that make it a community.

Blending social science with personal interviews, the author shares the lessons of planned communities from historic Riverside, Illinois, to archetypal Levittown, New York, and Disney's Celebration, Florida. Through these inspirational stories, readers will discover the characteristics of neighborhoods that promote the attitudes and behaviors of a healthy community.

This volume is an eye-opener for everyone who's wondered what makes their local neighborhoods tick. It demystifies the way planners, architects, developers, organizers, and citizens come together in crafting a community's physical elements, policies, programs, and processes. Readers will come away with a new understanding of their roles in creating the communities they want.

Part 1
Social Science Research

Chapter 1
What Is Community?

In Ersilia, to establish the relationships that sustain the city’s life, the inhabitants stretch strings from the corners of the houses, white or black or gray or black- and- white according to whether they mark a relationship of blood, of trade, authority, agency. When the strings become so numerous that you can no longer pass among them, the inhabitants leave: the houses are dismantled; only the strings and their supports remain.

— Italo Calvino¹

A community is a particular type of association, distinguishable from other forms of association such as cliques, gangs, action sets, and factions.² George Hillery, in an oft- quoted paper published in 1955, looks at 94 definitions of community (he uncovers many more) in the sociological literature of the first half of the 20th century. All but three of the 94 studies agree that community means people in social interaction; 24 agree that it also means people having common ends, norms, and means; and 55 agree that it also means people living in the same area.³ In other words, most definitions of community include social interaction, common ties, and coresidency.

Psychologists believe that community-relevant behavior is motivated by a “sense of community.” Seymour Sarason’s The Psychological Sense of Community stimulated a decade and a half of lively scholarship that produced our current understanding of the term as meaning a feeling of “we- ness”; of belonging to a group whose members share a common destiny; being bound together by emotional ties rather than individual self- interest.⁴ It is a feeling that each member is concerned about the welfare of the others.⁵ In a seminal paper, David McMillan and David Chavis defined it as the feeling that one belongs to and identifies with a group, is accepted as a member, and is prepared to put the group’s collective good before individual interests; that one can influence what the group does but is prepared to yield to group pressures; that one’s needs will be met through membership of the group and through members’ commitment to help one another; and that members have common experiences and a common history that add meaning to shared activities and shared surroundings.⁶

Sense of community is the motivation for people to behave in community-relevant ways. Neighborhood studies show people who express a stronger sense of community are more likely to engage in neighborly acts, express willingness to cooperate, participate in community organizations and in local affairs, make physical improvements, fight crime, support public school taxes, and operate social programs.⁷

People who have a stronger sense of community are also more likely to express feelings of satisfaction with life in their neighborhood and are more likely to think of their neighborhood as a community.⁸ They are also inclined to identify neighbors by name, have friends and relatives living nearby, be longtime residents, and expect to stay there for a number of years.⁹ Home owners who expect to continue living in the neighborhood for a number of years have also been found to have a stronger sense of community. A sense of community depends in large measure on community attachment, or the number of friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood, which tends to increase the longer one lives in an area.

Studies have found that certain people are more likely to have a sense of community than others. They include those who have what Stephanie Riger and Paul Lavrakis call “behavioral rootedness,” people who lead active family lives, married couples and couples with children, people who have friends and relatives in the neighborhood, longtime residents, and individuals who are emotionally stable.¹⁰ Older residents tend to have a greater sense of community than younger ones. Those who are fearful of crime have less sense of community than those who feel safe.¹¹ People express their sense of community in different ways: Women interact with more of their neighbors than men do (although these interactions are not necessarily more frequent or more intimate), and people with higher education and income typically know and engage with more of their neighbors, but they rely on them less for friendship and support.¹²

Following George Hillery’s findings, I will consider a group of people to be a community if its members interact in a way that reflects shared interests. If, in addition, they live in the same area, I will refer to the area as a neighborhood.¹³ In this book I am concerned with neighborhood- based (that is, residential) communities.

Figure 1.1.Every summer, the Afro- American newspaper organizes a Clean Block Competition in Baltimore and awards prizes for the best- looking street blocks. The improvements in the blocks reflect residents’ coordinated efforts. This photo was taken in the Upton neighborhood in 1978.

Alain Jaramillo

I use the word neighborhood in its most general sense, to mean the geographic area that residents perceive as an extension of their home. A neighborhood- based community is a particular form of community. It is a group of people bound together by interests that stem directly from the condition of being residents of the same neighborhood; these are interests they share only with coresidents and only as long as they remain coresidents. I characterize these interests as: all in the same place; all in the same boat; all of the same kind; one for all; and all in the family.

1. All in the Same Place
   Coresidents are drawn to the physical form and appearance of the neighborhood and to the local amenities that it offers. Think of neighborhoods that are distinctive, with memorable buildings and good services.
2. All in the Same Boat
   Coresidents, as a group, stand to gain or lose from the actions of individual residents, and individuals stand to gain or lose from the actions of the group. Think of neighborhood improvements that increase the value of an individual property, or of a street that becomes less desirable because a neighbor allows his property to deteriorate.
3. All of the Same Kind
   Coresidents are drawn together because they share the same status, values, and practices. Think of neighborhoods that reflect a racial, ethnic, or class identity.
4. One for All
   Coresidents are drawn together by their membership in an organization that represents and advocates for their common interests, and also speaks for them with a single voice. Think of residents who attend neighborhood meetings, serve on committees, vote in elections, and pay membership dues.
5. All in the Family
   Coresidents are drawn together by shared memories and local customs and rituals. Think of neighborhoods in which meaningful buildings are preserved and protected, and where people retell the same stories and repeat the same annual festivals.

Neighborhood-based communities, like other communities, do not come about naturally; they are deliberately constructed in order to further common interests. We used to believe that people who share the same values and interests are predis-posed to interact and cooperate with one another, and therefore gravitate to the same part of the city.¹⁴ We thought that community and neighborhood are two sides of the same coin. But this ignored the fact that coresidency is the result of choice for some, and lack of choice for others.

Architects and urban planners see loss of community as the consequence of poor neighborhood design. They say that neighborhoods do not look like or have the feel of community: Densities are low, there are few pedestrian- friendly places, there is little chance for people to meet casually and spontaneously, and residents lose the spirit of cooperation and the interpersonal skills necessary for negotiating differences. They become mistrustful of one another and participate less in formal and informal associations. They do not identify with their neighborhoods and do not feel affection for or take pride in them. Unhappy and frustrated, they yearn for old- time small towns with their pedestrian- oriented streets, small- scale, walk- to stores and workplaces, convenient public transportation, active public areas, and local institutions.¹⁵

Social science researchers also see community through the lens of their own particular discipline. Anthropologists and biologists say humans are social animals who have developed and prevailed precisely because of our ability to work together for the common good. We form communities because it is human nature to do so.¹⁶ Aristotle writes that it is only through interaction in communities that we are able to acquire and practice the good habits that make it possible for us to be truly happy.¹⁷

Psychologists say it is in communities that we develop the self- esteem, competence, and control that we need for our individual well- being. When we are deprived of community, we feel unwanted and rejected, becoming easy prey to mental illness and other psychological disturbances; we become unhappy, lonely, anxious, frustrated, and alienated, even psychopathic. Life loses meaning and becomes empty.¹⁸

Sociologists think community is the medium through which we learn about social responsibility, friendship, love, status and role, order and disorder, and guilt and innocence. A community allows us to pass information from one generation to another, socialize children, acculturate newcomers, accommodate group differences, and build a common culture.¹⁹

Political scientists say communities bring people together to discuss common needs, values, and problems, and to express and advocate for common interests. Through community we build networks, norms, and trust; and we create an atmosphere of civic responsibility, informal social control, neighborly goodwill, and mutual concern for the common good. Without communities to mediate between our private and public lives, society and democracy would not exist.²⁰

There is agreement that community is important to us, both as individuals and as members of society. But many feel that we in the United States have become less community minded than in the past.²¹

Bellah and others, in Habits of the Heart, blame this lack of community on the nature of our society, which values individual rights and freedoms over the well- being of the collective. We do not measure people’s success by their contribution to public life but rather by their personal incomes and lifestyles, the quality of their homes, and the prestige of the areas in which they live. We do not require that people participate in community affairs. Those who become involved see it as an investment rather than a duty, and so they choose communities of similar- minded people, ensuring that their membership will bring them the greatest personal rewards.²²

Other researchers blame the loss of community on the changing role of local organizations in civic life. They argue that in the past, primary groups such as family, neighborhood, and church played an important role in people’s lives and in society as a whole; these groups had a great deal of autonomy, and people participated in order to gain status, security, and identity. Today, many primary groups have dissolved, and others have been replaced by large, impersonal institutions, which cut across local boundaries and are guided by outside policies and decisions. These groups are devoted to single- issue causes and do not instill in their members a shared sense of the larger society.²³

Still others believe television and Internet use contribute to the general weakening of community ties by making it possible for individuals to live farther apart, replacing face- to- face ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• A Note to the Reader
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Neighbors & Neighborhoods
• PART 1: SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH
• PART 2: DEVELOPMENT HISTORIES
• PART 3: COMMUNITY DESIGN
• Notes
• Index