From the ground up : translating geography into community through neighbor networks

263 Pages·2009·1.47 MB·English

by  Rick Grannis

From the Ground Up

From the Ground Up
TRANSLATING GEOGRAPHY INTO
COMMUNITY THROUGH
NEIGHBOR NETWORKS
Rick Grannis
P R I N C E TO N U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S
P R I N C E TO N A N D OX F O R D
Copyright2009byPrincetonUniversityPress
PublishedbyPrincetonUniversityPress,41WilliamStreet,
Princeton,NewJersey08540
IntheUnitedKingdom:PrincetonUniversityPress,6OxfordStreet,
Woodstock,OxfordshireOX201TW
AllRightsReserved
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Grannis,Rick,1965–
Fromthegroundup:translatinggeographyintocommunitythrough
neighbornetworks/RickGrannis.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-691-14025-4(acid-freepaper)
1.Communitylife.2.Neighborhood.3.Communities.4.Ecology.I.Title.
HM761.G732009
307.33620973—dc22 2009003739
BritishLibraryCataloging-in-PublicationDataisavailable
ThisbookhasbeencomposedinMinion
Printedonacid-freepaper.
press.princeton.edu
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Illustrations and Tables ix
Prologue xv
CHAPTER ONE
Neighborhoods and Neighboring 1
Geography and Community 1
It’s the Kids, Stupid! 4
Overview of the Book 8
CHAPTER TWO
The Stages of Neighboring 17
Neighboring: A Superposed Relation 17
Stage 1 Neighboring 20
Stage 2 Neighboring 20
Stage 3 Neighboring 23
Stage 4 Neighboring 25
Main Points in Review 27
CHAPTER THREE
Reconceptualizing Stage 1 Neighboring 28
Proximity 28
Boundaries 29
Face Blocks 31
Tertiary Face Blocks 32
Intersections 34
Main Points in Review 35
CHAPTER FOUR
Reconceptualizing Stage 1 Neighbor Networks 37
Layers of Complex Network Structures 37
T-Communities and Islands 42
Main Points in Review 46
v
CONTENTS
CHAPTER FIVE
Selection and Influence 48
Selecting Homophilous Immediate Neighbors 48
Influence 52
Homophily and Influence Acting on
Different Stages of Neighboring 56
Main Points in Review 57
CHAPTER SIX
Respondents, Interviews, and Other Data 59
Gang Neighborhood Ethnography and Interviews 60
Overview of the Other Data Collection Events 61
Structured Interviews 61
Cognitive Mapping and Alternatives 62
Data Collection in 68 Los Angeles Neighborhoods 65
Adaptive Link-Tracing 66
The Second Los Angeles Data Collection 67
College Town Census and Resample 68
Administrative Data 70
Main Points in Review 72
CHAPTER SEVEN
Selecting Stage 1 Neighbors 73
Selecting Racially Homophilous Tertiary Street Neighbors 73
Accepting Heterogenous Higher-Stage Neighbors 76
A Dialogue with Administrative Data 78
Segregating Tertiary Street Networks 79
Tertiary Street Network Borders 84
The Impact of a Single Tertiary Street Connection 89
Main Points in Review 90
CHAPTER EIGHT
Unintentional Encounters 93
The Substantive Reality of Passive Contacts 93
The “Lived” Experience of Tertiary Street Networks 96
A Note about Large, Multiunit Complexes 105
Main Points in Review 107
vi
CONTENTS
CHAPTER NINE
Stage 3 Neighbors and Tertiary Streets 109
Tertiary Street Proximity and Stage 3 Neighbors 109
Tertiary Street Networks and Stage 3 Neighbor Networks 113
More Than Proximity 119
Main Points in Review 127
CHAPTER TEN
The Importance of Neighbor Networks 129
Three Degrees of Neighboring 129
A Note about the Exhaustive Census 134
Neighboring Is a Family Relation 135
The Importance of Convenient Availability 139
Main Points in Review 144
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Network Influence Theory 148
Social Influence Network Theory 148
Beyond Density 151
The Horizon of Observability 155
Structural Cohesion 158
Merely a Mechanism? 159
Main Points in Review 161
CHAPTER TWELVE
Influence Networks in a College Town 162
T-Communities, Children, and the Horizon of Observability 162
T-Communities and Social Control 164
Neighbor Influence and T-Community Culture 166
Main Points in Review 176
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Influence Networks in a Gang Barrio 178
Geographic Neighborhood and Sociological Neighborhood 178
Neighborhood Community and Tertiary Street Networks 180
An Efficacious Neighborhood 182
Neighborhood Efficacy as a Function of Influence Networks 184
vii
CONTENTS
Influence Networks as a Function of Tertiary Street Networks 187
Main Points in Review 190
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Implications 192
Summary 192
What It All Means 197
APPENDIX
Survey Instrument 201
Notes 207
References 219
Index 237
viii
Illustrations and Tables
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGURE 3.1: Face block 32
FIGURE 4.1: Stage 4 neighbor network 38
FIGURE 4.2: Stage 3 neighbor network, which induces
stage 4 neighbor network 39
FIGURE 4.3: Stage 2 neighbor network, which induces
stage 3 neighbor network 40
FIGURE 4.4: Stage 1 neighbor network, which induces
stage 2 neighbor network 41
FIGURE 4.5: T-communities 44
FIGURE 4.6: Tertiary street island 46
FIGURE 6.1: Distribution of t-community sizes 71
FIGURE 7.1: Pasadena’s tertiary streets by residential
demographics 80
FIGURE 7.2: Enlarged subsection of figure 7.1 81
FIGURE 7.3: For spatially adjacent block groups, distribution
of absolute difference in population that is white 86
FIGURE 7.4: For spatially adjacent block groups, distribution
of absolute difference in population that is Asian 86
FIGURE 7.5: For spatially adjacent block groups, distribution
of absolute difference in population that is Hispanic 87
FIGURE 7.6: For spatially adjacent block groups, distribution
of absolute difference in population that is black 87
FIGURE 7.7: Demographic differences between spatially adjacent
block groups by number of shared tertiary streets 91
FIGURE 8.1: Passive contacts by type 94
FIGURE 8.2: Sample cognitive map 1 99
FIGURE 8.3: Sample cognitive map 2 101
FIGURE 8.4: Cognitive maps compared to tertiary
street island map 104
ix