Too big to succeed: Mega neighborhoods, depression, and actually existing urban governance

Abstract

Cities worldwide are haunted by an obsession with mega concepts, which vary from large-scale projects to mega cities and urban sprawl. Yet, scholars pay little attention to a “mega” concept that is more proximate to urban life: the mega neighborhood. This study investigates the nature of mega neighborhoods in urban China and critically synthesizes four relational models – social network, place attachment, collective efficacy, and neighborhood politics – to understand the perplexing negative impact of neighborhood population size on mental depression. Based on a path analysis of 37 urban neighborhoods, this study demonstrates that among the four possible pathways linking ecology to mentality, the social-network, collective-efficacy, and especially neighborhood-politics pathways, mediate the effect of neighborhood population size on depression. The practical and theoretical implications of these findings are further explored against the backdrop of the political economy of place, and more broadly, actually existing urban governance.