Urban Neighborhood Research

Recent decades have witnessed the growth of urban America and the transformation of the neighborhood, its smallest form of community. This article is an assessment of the literature on urban neighborhoods that explores (1) the principal themes in the literature, (2) the problems and limitations posed by this literature, and (3) the major contributions of these studies and their bearing on an agenda for future research. This assessment points up the processes of change and differentiation occurring in the local community and its underlying persistence. As a more open system than in the past, the neighborhood mirrors the fluidity, growth, and social class differentiation wrought by the larger society. Generalizations of urban neighborhood conditions are no longer possible, and the newer typologies reflect this diversity. The key issues are the understanding of the persistence of the local community and the factors contributing to its differentiation.