Neighborhoods and Communities

In chapter 5 of the Housing and Community book, “housing is a durable physical product in a neighborhood setting.” Neighborhoods have both social and physical community aspects. A neighborhood is defined as a place of housing, streets, sidewalks, open spaces, utility lines, and residents. Neighborhoods create community. Social interaction and where these social interactions take place are called a community. In order to have a successful community neighborhood, you must have the social and physical community developments designed well for both to come together as one, otherwise residents might not feel satisfied.

In order for people to feel satisfied within a neighborhood, residents must feel safe, not be segregated as a race, have nice neighbors to socialize with and go to for help when needed, and more. If you live in a noisy neighborhood next to a big street, then people might not want to stay there much longer because of safety matters especially if you have small children. People want to see green trees and grass in a neighborhood, not just house after house with little greenery. I believe that cookie-cutter houses are also a negative when comparing neighborhoods because people are not going to want to live in the same planned out house as all their neighbors. We want to be unique because every family is different.

It is nice to have a variety of different kinds of neighborhoods to choose from to suit personal needs and wants. However, I realized from reading the chapter that if you want to just build your own house in a specific area, there are lots of limitations due to zoning codes and ordinances. It is nice to know that the city can give out special permits though. Some parts of covenants are excessive and not necessary, but they do help with making residents keep up their home and not look like a slob.

Studying the different theories about the people that live in certain areas of a city are good to know because they can help in how you design a community, especially if it is a densely populated community to ensure that you design a place where vandalism and crime don’t occur.