Vertical Village: Social Contacts in a Singles Highrise Complex

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the characteristics of community life in a age-segregated highrise complex and the implications of this new form of housing for the quality of urban life. The physical characteristics of the housing do not determine behavior of occupants, but use of the residential environment is shaped by the image of the community and is also affected by the characteristics of residents and their housing expectations. The reputation of the community serves to attract a certain type of person—the upper middle class, well-educated, and single young adult—in high concentrations. Despite previous studies which have characterized young adults in city neighborhoods as totally cut off from local ties, a combination of factors encourages a high degree of neighboring among this population: homogeneity in terms of age, class, ethnicity, and stage of the life cycle: social selectivity of persons with a positive interest in neighboring: a high concentration of persons occupying a deviant social status; and inter-locking networks of friendship, work and organizational ties. “Marginals” in this environment are the small minority of older and married tenants who compensate for their deviant status vis a vis the majority group of young singles by over-selecting other tenants like themselves for nieghboring relations.