A neighbourhood (
British English,
Irish English
Hiberno-English (from Latin ''Hibernia'': "Ireland"), and in ga, Béarla na hÉireann. or Irish English, also formerly Anglo-Irish, is the set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland (including both the Republic of Ireland a ...
,
Australian English
Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language; while Australia has no official language, Engli ...
and
Canadian English
Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA) encompasses the varieties of English native to Canada. According to the 2016 census, English was the first language of 19.4 million Canadians or 58.1% of the total population; the remainder spoke French ( ...
) or neighborhood (
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
;
see spelling differences) is a geographically localised
community within a larger
city
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
,
town,
suburb
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...
or
rural area, sometimes consisting of a single
street
A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, ...
and the
buildings lining it. Neighbourhoods are often social communities with considerable
face-to-face interaction among members. Researchers have not agreed on an exact definition, but the following may serve as a starting point: "Neighbourhood is generally defined spatially as a specific geographic area and functionally as a set of social networks. Neighbourhoods, then, are the
spatial units in which face-to-face social interactions occur—the personal settings and situations where residents seek to realise common values, socialise youth, and maintain effective social control."
Preindustrial cities
In the words of the urban scholar
Lewis Mumford, "Neighbourhoods, in some annoying, inchoate fashion exist wherever human beings congregate, in permanent family dwellings; and many of the functions of the city tend to be distributed naturally—that is, without any theoretical preoccupation or political direction—into neighbourhoods." Most of the earliest cities around the world as excavated by archaeologists have evidence for the presence of social neighbourhoods. Historical documents shed light on neighbourhood life in numerous historical preindustrial or nonwestern cities.
Neighbourhoods are typically generated by social interaction among people living near one another. In this sense they are local social units larger than
households not directly under the control of city or state officials. In some preindustrial urban traditions, basic municipal functions such as protection, social regulation of births and marriages, cleaning and upkeep are handled informally by neighbourhoods and not by urban governments; this pattern is well documented for historical Islamic cities.
In addition to social neighbourhoods, most ancient and historical cities also had administrative districts used by officials for taxation, record-keeping, and social control. Administrative districts are typically larger than neighbourhoods and their boundaries may cut across neighbourhood divisions. In some cases, however, administrative districts coincided with neighbourhoods, leading to a high level of regulation of social life by officials. For example, in the T'ang period Chinese capital city Chang'an, neighbourhoods were districts and there were state officials who carefully controlled life and activity at the neighbourhood level.
Neighbourhoods in preindustrial cities often had some degree of social specialisation or differentiation. Ethnic neighbourhoods were important in many past cities and remain common in cities today. Economic specialists, including craft producers, merchants, and others, could be concentrated in neighbourhoods, and in societies with religious pluralism neighbourhoods were often specialised by religion. One factor contributing to neighbourhood distinctiveness and social cohesion in past cities was the role of rural to urban migration. This was a continual process in preindustrial cities, and migrants tended to move in with relatives and acquaintances from their rural past.
Sociology
Neighbourhood sociology is a subfield of
urban sociology which studies local communities Neighbourhoods are also used in research studies from postal codes and
health disparities, to correlations with school drop out rates or use of drugs. Some attention has also been devoted to viewing the neighbourhood as a small-scale
democracy, regulated primarily by ideas of reciprocity among neighbours.
Improvement
Neighbourhoods have been the site of service delivery or "service interventions" in part as efforts to provide local, quality services, and to increase the degree of local control and ownership. Alfred Kahn, as early as the mid-1970s, described the "experience, theory and fads" of neighbourhood service delivery over the prior decade, including discussion of income transfers and poverty. Neighbourhoods, as a core aspect of community, also are the site of services for youth, including children with disabilities and coordinated approaches to low-income populations. While the term neighbourhood organisation is not as common in 2015, these organisations often are non-profit, sometimes grassroots or even core funded community development centres or branches.
Community and economic development activists have pressured for reinvestment in local communities and neighbourhoods. In the early 2000s, Community Development Corporations, Rehabilitation Networks, Neighbourhood Development Corporations, and Economic Development organisations would work together to address the housing stock and the infrastructures of communities and neighbourhoods (e.g., community centres). Community and Economic Development may be understood in different ways, and may involve "faith-based" groups and congregations in cities.
As a unit in urban design
In the 1900s,
Clarence Perry described the idea of a
neighbourhood unit as a self-contained residential area within a city. The concept is still influential in
New Urbanism. Practitioners seek to revive traditional sociability in planned suburban housing based on a set of principles. At the same time, the neighbourhood is a site of interventions to create Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (AFCC) as many older adults tend to have narrower life space. Urban design studies thus use neighbourhood as a unit of analysis.
Neighbourhoods around the world
Asia
China
In
mainland China, the term is generally used for the urban
administrative division found immediately below the district level, although an intermediate, subdistrict level exists in some cities. They are also called streets (administrative terminology may vary from city to city). Neighbourhoods encompass 2,000 to 10,000 families. Within neighbourhoods, families are grouped into smaller residential
units or
quarters of 100 to 600 families and supervised by a
residents' committee; these are subdivided into residents' small groups of fifteen to forty families. In most urban areas of China, neighbourhood,
community, residential community, residential unit, residential quarter have the same meaning: or or or , and is the direct sublevel of a
subdistrict A subdistrict or sub-district is an administrative division that is generally smaller than a district.
Equivalents
* Administrative posts of East Timor, formerly Portuguese-language
* Kelurahan, in Indonesia
* Mukim, a township in Brunei, In ...
(), which is the direct sublevel of a
district (), which is the direct sublevel of a
city
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
(). (See
Administrative divisions of the People's Republic of China
The administrative divisions of China have consisted of several levels since ancient times, due to China's large population and geographical area. The constitution of China provides for three levels of government. However in practice, there a ...
)
Europe
United Kingdom
The term has no general official or statistical purpose in the United Kingdom, but is often used by local
boroughs for self-chosen sub-divisions of their area for the delivery of various services and functions, as for example in
Kingston-upon-Thames or is used as an informal term to refer to a small area within a town or city. The label is commonly used to refer to organisations which relate to such a very local structure, such as neighbourhood policing
or
Neighbourhood watch schemes. In addition, government statistics for local areas are often referred to as neighbourhood statistics, although the data themselves are broken down usually into
districts and
wards
Ward may refer to:
Division or unit
* Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward
* Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a priso ...
for local purposes. In many parts of the UK wards are roughly equivalent to neighbourhoods or a combination of them.
North America
In
Canada and the
United States, neighbourhoods are often given official or semi-official status through
neighbourhood association
A neighborhood association (NA) is a group of residents or property owners who advocate to organize activities within a neighborhood. An association may have elected leaders and voluntary dues.
Some neighborhood associations in the United State ...
s,
neighbourhood watches or block watches. These may regulate such matters as
lawn care and
fence height, and they may provide such services as
block parties, neighbourhood
parks
A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...
and community
security
Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...
. In some other places the equivalent organisation is the
parish, though a parish may have several neighbourhoods within it depending on the area.
In localities where neighbourhoods do not have an official status, questions can arise as to where one neighbourhood begins and another ends. Many cities use ''districts'' and ''wards'' as official divisions of the city, rather than traditional neighbourhood boundaries.
ZIP Code boundaries and post office names also sometimes reflect neighbourhood identities.
See also
*
Barangay (Philippines)
*
Barrio
''Barrio'' () is a Spanish language, Spanish word that means "Quarter (urban subdivision), quarter" or "neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city, usually delimited by functional (e.g. residenti ...
(Spanish)
*
Bairro
A ''bairro'' () is a Portuguese language, Portuguese word for a Quarter (urban subdivision), quarter or a neighborhood or, sometimes, a district which is within a city or town. It is commonly used in Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, ...
(Portuguese)
*
Block Parent Program (Canada)
*
Borough
*
Census-designated place
*
Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (Cuba)
*
Community
*
Comparison of Home Owners' and Civic Associations
*
Frazione (Italian)
*
Homeowners' association
A homeowner association (or homeowners' association, abbreviated HOA, sometimes referred to as a property owners' association or POA), or a homeowner community, is a private association-like entity often formed either ''ipso jure'' in a building ...
*
Kiez (German)
*
Komshi
Komšija ( tr, komşu, " neighbor") or Komšiluk denotes a neighborhood in the Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definiti ...
(
Balkan
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
states during the
Ottoman Empire)
*
Mahalle
* ''
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood''
*
Neighbourhood Watch
*
New urbanism
*
Electoral precinct
*
Quarter
*
Residential community
*
Suburbs
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...
*
Unincorporated community
References
; Citations
External links
*
{{Authority control
Types of populated places