Estrategias de E – marketing

A variety of definitions have been proposed in the scientific literature; however, a definitive concept of neighborhood remains difficult to pin down theoretically, and much more so operationally.

Hunter (1979) illuminates the difficulty in defining neighborhood by stating that "We can state that uniformly it is considered a social/spatial unit of social organization, and that it is larger than a household and smaller than a city" (p.270). He makes this rather facetious specification in light of the fact that the inclusion of additional criteria easily moves into a normative definition, as opposed to merely descriptive. The emergence of this problem can be seen in Schwirian’s (1983) distinction

28 between a neighborhood and a ‘residential area,’ where a residential area lacks sufficient relationships between residents to qualify as a neighborhood—yet one can imagine many residents would in fact feel their ‘residential area’ is a neighborhood.

Hunter (1979) notes that typologizing neighborhoods occurs in one of three ways. At one extreme, the neighborhood is defined with ease as the major criterion is “often little more than a spatial, statistical aggregation of individual characteristics” (p.271). At the other are neighborhoods defined by resident perceptions, which can vary significantly from resident to resident (Coulton, Korbin, Chan, & Su, 2001; Coulton, Jennings, & Chan, 2012; Haney & Knowles, 1978). The third option lies somewhere in the middle. This tension between easily defined, or pre-defined, neighborhood units and difficult to define, or perhaps realistically impossible, neighborhood units based on the perceptions of those living there continues to pose difficulties.

Galster’s (2001) presents an especially thorough and flexible definition of neighborhood:

"Neighbourhood is the bundle of spatially based attributes associated with clusters of residences, sometimes in conjunction with other land uses" (p.2112).

He lists ten categories of spatial attributes that make up this bundle:

 Structural characteristics of the residential and non-residential buildings

 Infrastructural characteristics

 Demographic characteristics of the resident population

 Class status characteristics of the resident population

 Tax/public service package characteristics

 Environmental characteristics

 Proximity characteristics

 Political characteristics

 Social-interactive characteristics

 Sentimental characteristics (p.2112).

Key to this definition is that all of the attributes are spatially based, though each attribute may have a different spatial extent. Thus, he suggests that each researcher define neighborhoods based on the attribute of interest (Galster, 2001). Thus one’s neighborhood as defined by local social network will likely differ from that defined by the school district. However, his proposed solution does not apply to all research questions; for example if one were to investigate employment rates by neighborhood it would be difficult to come up with neighborhood boundaries based on employment locations. He also notes that certain aspects may be absent, such as social-interactive characteristics (thereby including those areas Schwirian would exclude), though noting that there can be differences in the “degree of presence of neighborhood” (p.2113).

Galster’s definition aligns relatively well with Suttles’ (1972) four-level hierarchy of neighborhood and Kearns & Parkinson’s (2001) three-level hierarchy derived from Suttles’. Each level has its own boundaries and functions. The smallest level is the ‘local network and the face-block’ or ‘home area,’ which varies by individual and has fuzzy boundaries (approximately a five to ten minute walk from one’s home). The functions of the home area revolve primarily around local social networks and feelings of belonging. As introduced in Section 1.3.1, in this work the term neighborhood corresponds

29 roughly with the Suttles’ home area.The next level is the ‘defending neighborhood,’35 _{which is the}

smallest concept of neighborhood generally identifiable to both residents and non-residents; it contains small businesses and institutions, such as markets and churches. It is analogous to the term community in this work. The ‘community of limited liability’ or ‘locality,’ determined and recognized more by governmental and commercial interests than residents, is the level at which concerns of planning, service provision, and the housing market function, and are approximately equivalent to the statistical planning areas (SPAs) in the City of Cleveland.36 _{Finally, the ‘expanded community of limited}

liability’ or ‘urban district/region,’ which tend to encompass entire sections of a city, fulfill the functions related to employment networks, leisure activities, and broader social networks (Kearns & Parkinson, 2001; Suttles, 1972).

Of particular conceptual importance, as noted by Hunter (1979), is neighborhood as the spatial and social unit that forms a link between the everyday lives of individuals and the broader institutions and mechanisms of society. He argues (following Burgess, 1973) that excluding the context in which a neighborhood is embedded limits neighborhood research to description and precludes explanation. Hunter (1979) provides four neighborhood functions that play a role in linking individuals to larger urban society:

(1) The economic function links the neighborhood to the larger economy via production and consumption activities; primarily oriented around, though not limited to, housing.

(2) The administrative function realizes the provision and distribution of public services; i.e. the link between individuals and state-provided services.

(3) The political function defines, aggregates, and organizes the efforts and concerns of local neighborhood groups; often instigated by economic and housing concerns.

(4) The socialization and socialability function builds social networks and perceived commonality, facilitated by local neighborhood interactions, shared identification with and commitment to the neighborhood. Hunter notes that this function tends to be stronger in weaker communities, suggesting that this function is the result of constraint, not choice.

These conceptualizations of neighborhood are advanced and encompassing; however, none provide information as to how to actually delineate neighborhoods. Looking at the research question, it is clear the choice of neighborhood boundaries is critical to the research. The objectives are to identify community- and neighborhood-level impacts of foreclosure prevention and mitigation programs, and to see if these impacts are related to neighborhood change and/or stabilization. To do so it is necessary to look for these impacts at the appropriate neighborhood scale—but what is this and how does one determine it? The literature provides little direction—rather, most neighborhood change research (see Section 2.3) simply uses an at-hand level of aggregation, such as the Census block, block group, or tract. It appears that researchers generally use a trial and error approach to determine the appropriate neighborhood scale. Despite this, the implications of various instantiations have important impacts on

35 _{Kearns & Parkinson exclude this level in their typology.}

30 the research and must be considered. Thus, the next section discusses possibilities to operationalize the concept of neighborhood for research applications.