Non-Neighborhoods: Beyond the Neighborhood Construct

• In Event: 095 - Section on Community and Urban Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Conceptualizing Spatial Units

Abstract

The neighborhood is an enduring and prominent object of study in urban sociology and a concept that neighborhood studies often operate under a shared understanding of what it constitutes. As the relationship between social processes and space has become increasingly complex over time, there is little attention in scholarly discourse to urban spaces that fall outside the bounds of our shared understanding of neighborhoods. In this essay, we conceptually explore the physical and social conditions of such spaces, what we call “non-neighborhoods.” We provide examples of where these spaces have previously appeared in urban literature, and discuss specific urban spaces that may serve as sites for non-neighborhoods. We present a discussion of empirical studies that would benefit from considering non-neighborhoods, and through these examples, we demonstrate the ways in which non-neighborhoods can contribute to our understanding of the city and the social processes that take place within it. We conclude with a discussion of hypothesized outcomes of non-neighborhoods, and propose how future research may benefit from incorporating this concept.

Authors

• Jackelyn Hwang, Harvard University

• Jessica T. Simes, Harvard University