TWO / The Meaning of Neighborhood

This chapter is structured around three interrelated questions. How should neighborhood be defined? Does a neighborhood have unambiguous and consensual boundaries? Should neighborhood be thought of as a variable? The chapter provides a definition of the neighborhood as externality space. Instead of conceptualizing neighborhood as a place, the chapter advances the idea that congruence, generality and accordance represent three distinct dimensions over which the degree of neighborhood varies across space. In one extreme case, the values assumed by these three dimensions could signal an archetypical neighborhood commanding distinct, clear boundaries from the viewpoints of all decision-makers of relevance for all the important spatial attributes. In the opposite extreme case, the values assumed by these three dimensions signal that no meaningful neighborhood exists in this geographic space beyond that idiosyncratic one which an individual resident might perceive. Finally, this chapter suggests how these measures of the neighborhood could be empirically tested and reflects on how the concept of neighborhood as externality space overarches and advances conventional views on the neighborhood.