The Community Quest: The Neighborhood Concept

Chapter 2

The Neighborhood Concept

Let’s begin by examining the idea of neighborhoods. In the first unit you learned that a community is a social group that resides in a specific locality, shares government, and has a historical heritage. Neighborhoods are little communities within a larger community. They have their own social, economic, architectural and/or ethnic characteristics. Neighborhoods join together to form the identity of the larger community.
Often, the term neighborhood is used to describe the divisions of a big city. However, neighborhoods come in all shapes and sizes, and exist in urban and rural locations. In it’s purest definition, a neighborhood is the vicinity in which you live. Neighborhoods exist in cities, villages, townships, hamlets, and rural areas.

Match the definition on the right to the term on the left.

1. City a. A small municipality or group of houses in a country district, larger than a hamlet and smaller than a city.

2. Village b. Pertaining to living in the country in an agricultural area.

3. Hamlet c. A region or division of a county with varying administrative powers.

4. Township d. An unincorporated village or a cluster of houses in the country, sometimes near a church.

5. Rural Area e. An incorporated municipality, usually governed by a mayor and a board of aldermen or commissioners.

Which of the above terms best describes the community your neighborhood is in?