Bounding Neighbourhoods: How Do Residents Do It?

Abstract

The ‘neighbourhood’ holds an iconic position in planning, yet there has been longstanding empirical criticism and debates about both the use and intellectual underpinnings of the concept. Despite this, it continues to provide a focus for local area planning, local policy interventions and urban design approaches, including in new urbanism. Neighbourhoods may be given physical dimensions so the boundaries that distinguish what is within and what is outside each neighbourhood can be defined. This paper asks what we can learn about such localities through a better understanding of how residents themselves actually identify these boundaries. It derives a series of questions that are addressed through analysis of resident perceptions of neighbourhood boundaries in an inner-city fringe suburb in Brisbane, Australia. The research confirmed many previous concerns about defining neighbourhood boundaries and that many residents were uncertain of the physical boundaries of their neighbourhoods.

Notes

1. There are thus many other views of neighbourhoods that are not canvassed here. For example, Jacobs (1965, p. 124) sees them as ‘mundane organs of self-government’; Webster (2003) gives a greater credence to economic elements in conceptualizing neighbourhoods; Cohen (1979) equates neighbourhoods with local areas of political and policy intervention; whilst Galster (1986) identifies neighbourhoods through externality effects brought about through real or anticipated change. The two views described in the article are the most common in the planning literature; they are also the two that most often underpin urban planning approaches to neighbourhoods.