The Functional Diversity of Urban Neighborhoods

Abstract

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.