Several years ago I did work on Who's On First via Mapzen on
neighborhoods for hundreds of world cities, with a focus on North
America and Europe. In lots of places (like a lot of Europe) they
are essentially admin units, in others (including a lot of the US)
they are more amorphous. And even where there are discrete admin
units that are in use (like the arondissments in Paris), there are
also informally bounded areas like "Montmartre" or "the Left Bank"
that overlap and interfere. Here in Minneapolis we have officially
defined neighborhoods, bounded somewhat arbitrarily for local
funding projects, based in part on old elementary school catchment
basins. There are also important named neighborhoods like Uptown
and Dinkytown that do not have boundaries. I find it useful in
cases like this to not assume neighborhoods are polygonal by
nature, but may have a core-and-periphery aspect to them,
especially if they have a commercial core; subdivisions without
that core are more likely to be polygonal. In fact, my work was to
identify and place label points (with zoom scale attributes for
relative importance) rather than define polygons, though much of
Mapzen is grounded in polygons. Who's on First is still available
as Open Source data and may provide useful information.
Nat Case
Minneapolis, MN
-------- Original message --------
[log in to unmask]">From: Angela R Cope <[log in to unmask]>Date: 1/29/21 8:55 AM (GMT-05:00)Subject: Neighborhood Boundaries Research / Social Theory
From: Belle Lipton <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2021 7:25 AM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: Belle Lipton <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Neighborhood Boundaries Research / Social TheoryOne of our teachers is designing a lesson for next week, looking at neighborhoods and wondering if anyone knew of books or articles that address these questions:
Who decides the boundaries between our neighborhoods? How does this impact how we think about where we live? Who benefits from certain ways of dividing and who doesn’t?
Belle LiptonGIS Map Librarian - Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library