This book is written in support of those who believe that neighborhoods should be genuinely relevant in our lives, not as casual descriptors of geographic location but as places that provide an essential context for daily life. “Neighborhood” in its traditional sense—as a localized, place-based, delimited urban area that has some level of personal influence—seems a vanished part of the urban experience. This book explores whether 21st-century neighborhoods can once again provide a sense of caring and local participation and not devolve into enclaves seeking social insularity and separation.
That the localized, diverse neighborhood has often failed to materialize requires thorough exploration. While many factors leading to the decline of the traditional neighborhood—e-commerce, suburban exclusivity, internet-based social contact—seem to be beyond anyone’s control, other factors seem more a product of neglect and confusion about neighborhood definition and its place in American society. Debates about the neighborhood have involved questions about social mix, serviceability, self-containment, centeredness, and connectivity within and without. This book works through these debates and proposes their resolution.
The historical and global record shows that there are durable, time-tested regularities about neighborhoods. Many places outside of the West were built with neighborhood structure in evidence—long before professionalized, Western urban planning came on the scene. This book explores the compelling case that the American neighborhood can be connected to these traditions, anchored in human nature and regularities of form, and reinstated as something relevant and empowering in 21st-century urban experience.
