neighbourhood

neighbourhood, immediate geographical area surrounding a family’s place of residence, bounded by physical features of the environment such as streets, rivers, train tracks, and political divisions. Neighbourhoods also typically involve a strong social component, characterized by social interaction between neighbours, a sense of shared identity, and similar demographic characteristics such as life stage and socioeconomic status.

The American sociologist William Julius Wilson has been influential in focusing research attention on the role of neighbourhoods in human development through his theory of the “new urban poor.” Wilson argues that the experience of poverty is more detrimental to poor families and youth since the late 20th century than it was in the past owing to changes in the structure of the neighbourhoods in which such families live. Today, poverty is more highly concentrated, and thus the poor tend to reside in neighbourhoods composed mostly of other poor families. That concentration of poverty and the adult joblessness that accompanies it lead to the social isolation of poor children from role models of mainstream routes to success, such as higher education and stable employment, and make alternative and frequently deviant routes more appealing.

Other researchers have demonstrated that poor neighbourhoods are associated with a wide range of negative outcomes throughout a person’s life. Their influence begins at birth, with neighbourhoods found to be significantly related to low birth weight and high infant mortality and to characteristics typically thought to represent genetic or innate differences or traits, such as lower intelligence quotient (IQ) and poor temperament.

In childhood and adolescence, neighbourhoods have been found to shape aggression, delinquency, and substance abuse as well as positive outcomes such as high school completion, good grades, community involvement, and general psychological well-being. Neighbourhoods have also been found to influence negative outcomes in adulthood, including single parenthood, the tendency to commit child abuse, low educational attainment, crime and substance abuse, and unemployment or underemployment.

What is it about a neighbourhood that makes a difference in the lives of youth? One answer is the neighbours. Nearly all neighbourhood studies find that the demographic or socioeconomic characteristics of neighbours are associated with the outcomes of interest. According to Wilson, for example, living in neighbourhoods with many poor families cuts off youth from mainstream society and leads to violence and delinquency. Other research emphasizes the benefits of having neighbours with high socioeconomic status for promoting prosocial outcomes and positive educational attainments. Other demographic features of a neighbourhood thought to be important include racial or ethnic homogeneity or heterogeneity, stability (the frequency with which people move in and out), family or household types (e.g., the prevalence of single-parent families), and density, or population.

The nature of social relationships within the neighbourhood is perhaps the most important way in which neighbourhoods influence child and family life. The American sociologist Robert Sampson and his colleagues have shown, for example, that “collective efficacy” within a neighbourhood—the shared belief among adults living in it that they can collectively achieve common goals—is associated with lower rates of delinquency and violence. Collective efficacy involves several subcomponents, including common goals about child rearing, trust of one’s neighbours, reciprocal exchanges of favours, and a willingness to informally monitor and sanction local youth. Of course, social relationships within disadvantaged neighbourhoods may facilitate undesirable outcomes as well, as in the case of youth gangs or deviant peer groups.

In addition to relationships within the neighbourhood, connections between members of the community and institutions outside the neighbourhood, sometimes referred to as “bridging ties,” are equally important. For example, relationships within the neighbourhood may provide little new information, such as about how to apply to college or about employment opportunities in other parts of the city. A related issue is a neighbourhood’s position within the larger metropolitan or regional political economy. Neighbourhoods located within traditionally poor and underserved areas of a city, for example, typically have less political power to effect change.

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The quality of public institutions and services in the neighbourhood is another important influence on the lives of families and children. Good schools, day care, health care facilities, police protection, libraries, and parks are but a few of the important institutions that families think about when choosing neighbourhoods in which to live. Although schools and neighbourhoods are typically studied in isolation from one another, the reality is that schools are a critical resource within neighbourhoods and an important mechanism through which neighbourhoods influence children. Aspects of schools typically studied include their socioeconomic status, disciplinary climate, organizational hierarchy, and the degree to which higher education is emphasized.

Neighbourhoods may also present threats to the lives of families and children. Perhaps most damaging is exposure to violence, which is believed to undermine children’s belief in a predictable world and in their ability to effectively respond. Constant attention to daily survival distracts youth from learning opportunities and erodes their faith that they will even live to adulthood, making planning and investment in long-term pursuits such as education less meaningful. Physical signs of community disorder, such as graffiti, trash, or abandoned buildings, have similarly been found to diminish residents’ sense of control and psychological well-being. Neighbourhood poverty and violence are also frequently accompanied by domestic violence and child abuse, further undermining the life chances of youth.

One frequent limitation of neighbourhood studies is that they assume neighbourhoods to have the same effect on all residents and that the direction of causal influence flows in one direction, from the neighbourhood to the youth or family. An ecological approach to human development, in contrast, recognizes that the relationship between neighbourhoods and families is inherently interactive, with developmental outcomes a joint function of the characteristics of each. From such a perspective, the experience of a family cannot be understood without taking into account the social context of the neighbourhood in which it is embedded. Similarly, the influence of a neighbourhood on families must take into account the diversity of youth and families within it and the fact that each may experience and respond to the neighbourhood differently.

Research has found, for example, that high-socioeconomic-status neighbourhoods may magnify the benefits of coming from high-socioeconomic-status families by helping such youth maximize their potential. Other studies suggest that the resources of good neighbourhoods are most beneficial to youth from families without such resources. Wilson, for example, argues that middle-class neighbours serve as social buffers or as a safety net for disadvantaged youth, acting as role models of mainstream routes to success and monitoring and sanctioning their behaviour. Still others have argued that living in high-resource neighbourhoods may have detrimental effects on poor youth because of their disadvantages in competitions for scarce resources or their negative self-appraisals in comparisons to more-advantaged youth.

An ecological approach also recognizes that families are not passive consumers of the neighbourhood. Within dangerous neighbourhoods, for example, parents play an active role in managing their children’s exposure to neighbourhood peers, violence, and other risks. Common protective strategies include restricting youth’s access to particularly dangerous areas, setting curfews, constraining children’s friendships, avoiding neighbours, chaperoning children’s activities, and other forms of vigilant monitoring.

The fact that parents choose or select the neighbourhoods in which they live is a serious methodological challenge to neighbourhood research. Like many other areas of social science research, it is usually not possible or ethical to conduct formal experiments in which families are randomly assigned to neighbourhoods. Thus, what researchers think are neighbourhood effects may simply reflect the differential ability or concern of parents to choose their neighbourhoods. Most studies attempt to address the selection issue by statistically controlling for variables associated with parents’ ability to select their neighbourhoods.