2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

6 Strengthening Communities with Neighborhood Data
their well-being (Ellen and Turner 1997). The quality of local public
services, the prevalence of crime and violence, the quality of the natural
and built environments, the influences of peers and social networks, and
proximity to jobs and resources can all act either to diminish the wellbeing
of individuals or enhance their prospects. A substantial body of
research finds that growing up in disinvested, distressed, or socially and
economically isolated neighborhoods is associated with an increased
risk of many adverse outcomes for children, including school failure,
poor health, victimization, delinquency, teen childbearing, and youth
unemployment (Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, and Aber 1997; Ellen, Mijanovich,
and Dillman 2001; Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn 2003). The influence
of the places where these children live persists throughout their life
course, especially as there is a strong chance, despite residential mobility,
that those who grow up in distressed areas live in similar areas as adults
(Sharkey 2008). Nevertheless, when families are assisted in moving out
of distressed areas and into middle-class neighborhoods, individuals
can experience improvements in their subjective well-being and many
aspects of health (Orr et al. 2003; Ludwig et al. 2008; Keels et al. 2005;
Sanbonmatsu et al. 2012), suggesting the importance of neighborhood
context along the continuum of advantage.
In this book, we use the terms neighborhood and place-based community
interchangeably. Although it is important to recognize that
communities can be far-flung and even virtual, this book focuses on
geographically defined areas that provide an important context for the
well-being of individuals and the success of the regions in which they
are located. Typically referred to as neighborhoods within urban areas,
they can also comprise villages or hamlets in rural areas. These areas are
not simply geographic footprints but units of social organization that
have meaning as places to live, work, and go about daily life. They have
an identity in the minds of insiders and outsiders. Neighborhoods and
villages are more than collections of individuals or locations for populations;
they also include space, physical structures, social networks, formal
and informal organizations, businesses, systems of exchange and governance,
and so forth. These place-based communities are not islands, but
are spatially located relative to other places. Moreover, they operate at
various scales, from the immediate residential vicinity to wider areas of
social, economic, and political relevance to daily life.
The problem of defining neighborhoods and the practical issue of
specifying their boundaries for local indicators work is taken up in detail