This chapter introduces the central themes in this volume and articulates those themes with previous approaches. Neighborhoods in this volume are integrative socio-spatial groups between the household and the settlement that are found in urbanizing landscapes. Previous theorizations of neighborhoods constrain them to specific populations or forms of sociality. Our cases show that the fundamental aspects of these theorizations (intermediate, distinct, cohesive, nested) can endure while population, morphology, and temporality vary. Neighborhood studies are presented as complementary to household, community, and urban/peri-urban studies, while attention is drawn to the diversity of forms neighborhoods take and diversity of themes neighborhoods help scholars address.[Integration, Intermediate socio-spatial groups, Urbanism]
Case studies from two distinct geographic and historical contexts are analyzed here with respect to the model of neighborhood-as-nexus. Sector B South, an urban neighborhood from 14th century Peru and Chicago's 20th century Bronzeville neighborhood are examined with respect to a) how they integrated neighbors and families with diverse social identities, b) the various geographical and historical processes that brought these neighbors together, and c) how each neighborhood was integrated into a wider urban and regional landscape. Sector B South and Bronzeville illustrate how wider processes alight in everyday life for urban residents. More generally, these cases provide an opportunity for exploring how a neighborhood approach can help bring clarity to the similarities and differences in the social experience of everyday life between two temporally and geographically distinct societies.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.