2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

286 Strengthening Communities with Neighborhood Data
from one another or uncovering the factors responsible for community
change over time. In recent years there has also been considerable interest
in determining whether community initiatives have been successful in
improving neighborhood or individual outcomes (e.g., impact studies)
and in how neighborhoods affect residents (e.g., neighborhood effects
studies). Both of these are explored in more detail in this chapter. When
explanation is the purpose, an important methodological consideration is
how to reduce the chances of making biased causal attributions. Several
recent methodological advances related to valid methods for neighborhood
studies have explanation and causal attribution as their primary purpose.
Conceptual Focus and Measurement Focus
The concept of neighborhood belies its layers of complexity and the fact
that each layer requires a somewhat different approach to conceptualization
and analysis. In fact, these layers might be thought of as nested, such
that people are nested within households and housing units, housing units
and other physical attributes are nested in neighborhoods, and neighborhoods
are nested in cities and regions. The focus for an analysis can also
be at one of several conceptual levels, such as people and place attributes,
community structure or process, or spatial patterns and dynamics.
A great deal of neighborhood data analysis focuses on the people, housing,
and physical attributes that characterize specific places. The gathering
and preparation of these types of data are discussed in chapter 3. Although
the tabulation of these data are typically straightforward counts and rates,
the myriad of data elements often makes interpretation unwieldy. This
chapter reports on some advances in multiattribute indexes and classification
methods that can aid in the analysis of neighborhood attribute
information.
Another focus for measurement is referred to here as community structure
or process. These structures or processes are social constructs such as
institutional arrangements, economic or political structure, network relationships,
and collective properties of the community. Although data from
individuals or organizations may go into these measures, the assumption
is that the constructs are emergent properties of the place or group. These
“eco-measures” are seldom simple tabulations but require validation as
higher-level aggregate concepts and measures. Although we do not explicitly
focus on ecometrics in this chapter because it has been well covered
elsewhere (Raudenbush and Sampson 1999), we do review recent develop-