Importance Of Neighborhoods Research Articles

Neighbourhood Perception, Preference, and Household Mobility in the Glasgow Private Housing Market

There has been much discussion as to the validity and importance of a disaggregated framework for analysis in the housing market. This paper, with data from a recent survey in Glasgow, is an analysis, first, of the ways in which neighbourhoods are perceived and shows that residents have widely differing perceptions as to the extent and distinctive features of their own neighbourhood. Second, the importance of neighbourhoods in structuring the process of search in the housing market and residential mobility is demonstrated. The paper concludes with suggestions as to ways in which neighbourhoods ought to be incorporated into urban analyses.

The Functional Diversity of Urban Neighborhoods

This research stresses the multiplicity of ways neighborhoods perform important social functions. The focus on a specific set of neighborhood roles has both heuristic and practical significance. By delineating functions, discussions about the importance of neighborhood can avoid didactic concern with increase or decline in an ideal-typical sense. Instead, the relative presence or absence of given functions can be taken into account as well as the diversity of functions. Thus, a given neighborhood may be impor tant in performing one role but insignificant in terms of others; other neighborhoods may be functionally pluralistic. As local government and community groups become more earnest in cost-effective assessment of intervention strategies and limited resources, the difference between local neighborhoods is a critical variable.