Residents' Spatial Knowledge of Neighborhood Continuity and FormThis paper discusses residents' cognition of neighborhood fm in terms of linearbased and areal-based knowledge structures. Cognitive and behavioral data are used to create su7faces of residents' familiarity with, and experience of, a neighborhood in San Diego, Cal$mia. The complexity of the data required the topological and relational sophistication of an ARC / INFO-based geographic information system. Cellular-based data were collected to ident$y place-spec@c measures of residents' familiarity and experience within the community. The cellular data facilitated aggregation of residents' cognitive sugaces as absolute spaces, and also relative to their homes. Spatial autocorrelation and directional autoregression techniques are used in association with standard cognitive mapping to establish the continuity and fm of residents' familiarity and experience with their neighborhood.The findings suggest that there is a structural diflerence in the spatial familiarity of residents who perceive their neighborhood as an area and those who perceive it as a network. North-south and east-west street networks played an important part as the basis for both linear-based and areal-based knowledge, but noncardinal directions were more prominent in the familiarity surjkces of those residents who had an areal-based perception of neighborhood fm. In terms of theories of spatial knowledge acquisition, the findings suggest that (i) there may not be a direct sequential link between linear-based and areal-based knowledge structures, (ii) knowledge of a complex network may not be suflcient to provide areal-based knowledge, and (iii) an areal-based knowledge structure does not necessarily comprise an understanding of survey procedures.Neighborhood has much in common with geographic concepts such as environment, landscape, and place in that it is often an important spatial variable yet it is hard to define precisely. The concept of neighborhood emerged as an important academic and planning concern when proponents such as Jacobs (1961) and Keller (1968) popularized it as a panacea for a wide range of inner-city problems. Within the planning profession, the idea of neighborhood-based local government emerged as the hallmark of a nationwide movement beginning in the Stuart C. Aitken is assistant professor of geography and Rudy Prosser is a master of geography candidute at San Diego State Uniuersity.