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In Schelling’s “checkerboard” model of segregation, individuals’ moderately held preferences about the proportion of their neighbors who are similar versus dissimilar to them can, through an automatic and mathematical process, yield dramatic population-level segregative behaviors. The notion of such an automatic segregative process would seem to have implications for spatial dynamics when a group home for persons with disabilities is introduced into a community. This study sought to examine those implications alongside data in the research literature regarding community acceptance of group homes.

Using an agent-based modeling approach, computer simulations were constructed to apply Schelling’s model, as well as an alternative model, to community reaction to the introduction of group homes for persons with disabilities. Simulation conditions were set to roughly correspond to the proportion of group homes or other congregate living situations, as well as vacant dwellings, in a typical community in the United States.

The simulations predict that group homes will, to varying degrees, become spatially isolated within their communities. These predictions conflict with previous research findings that suggest minimal relocation of neighbors and rapid adjustment of communities to the presence of group homes.

Simulations of an automatic segregative process might offer a baseline or a “null hypothesis” of sorts, allowing us to more fully understand the extent of the social and socioeconomic forces that serve to moderate or override such an automatic process, allowing communities to adjust to group homes’ presence.

We are interested in modeling the impact of spatial and interindustry dependence on firm-level innovation of Chinese firms The existence of network ties between cities imply that changes taking place in one city could influence innovation by firms in nearby cities (local spatial spillovers), or set in motion a series of spatial diffusion and feedback impacts across multiple cities (global spatial spillovers). We use the term local spatial spillovers to reflect a scenario where only immediately neighboring cities are impacted, whereas the term global spatial spillovers represent a situation where impacts fall on neighboring cities, as well as higher order neighbors (neighbors to the neighboring cities, neighbors to the neighbors of the neighbors, and so on). Global spatial spillovers also involve feedback impacts from neighboring cities, and imply the existence of a wider diffusion of impacts over space (higher order neighbors).

Similarly, the existence of national interindustry input-output ties implies that changes occurring in one industry could influence innovation by firms operating in directly related industries (local interindustry spillovers), or set in motion a series of in interindustry diffusion and feedback impacts across multiple industries (global interindustry spillovers).

Typical linear models of firm-level innovation based on knowledge production functions would rely on city- and industry-specific fixed effects to allow for differences in the level of innovation by firms located in different cities and operating in different industries. This approach however ignores the fact that, spatial dependence between cities and interindustry dependence arising from input-output relationships, may imply interaction, not simply heterogeneity across cities and industries.

We construct a Bayesian hierarchical model that allows for both city- and industry-level interaction (global spillovers) and subsumes other innovation scenarios such as: (1) heterogeneity that implies level differences (fixed effects) and (2) contextual effects that imply local spillovers as special cases.

This chapter focuses on the newness of neighbour relations and new scenarios of neighbouring that have emerged in the recently built residential districts of large Russian cities – Moscow and St Petersburg. In the last decades, the scenarios of neighbouring in Russia have undergone significant changes due to the collapse of the Soviet system and the formation of a new sociality. In this situation, new urban districts have become a testing ground where new scenarios of neighbouring have been developed in everyday communication. The study finds that the emerging scenario of neighbouring differs from lifelong Soviet neighbouring with its close personal contacts, as well as from the isolationism of the 1990–2000s, and is based on the management and flexible reconfiguration of neighbour relations. This chapter argues that the newness of urban settings is a special state that influences neighbour relations and leads to enthusiasm for, and intensification of, interaction between neighbours; the invention of new forms of neighbour relations; and the actualisation of neighbour solidarity in a space that is still deficient in other ways. While newness is a state that allows creative forms of sociality to flourish, it is also a limiting state in the way it imposes absence and deficiencies upon residents that requires them to create new, compensatory structures and solidarities.

Contemporary urban change is predominantly driven by migration and capital accumulation, with associated urban (re-)development projects – such as new-build gentrification – typically favouring the middle classes. Low-income residents in gentrifying neighbourhoods are often said to be displaced from their homes, either directly or indirectly, or to experience a loss of sense of place induced by the physical and social changes to the area. With the latter in mind, we investigate the perceived opportunities and threats of urban renewal experienced by stay-put communities in the wake of new developments and demonstrate how a loss of sense of place occurs via conflict between neighbours affected by the change. Our focus on transnational spaces comprising co-migrant Kurdish/Turkish communities in the two cities of Istanbul (Turkey) and Vienna (Austria) reveals not only how profoundly the impacts of neighbour conflict are felt as once-close and supportive neighbourly ties are severed but also how well-established neighbourly norms and obligations in transnational spaces accentuate the conflict in the first place. Moral codes that require neighbours to look after one another, along with local power dynamics of support in return for loyalty, set expectations that neighbours will take each other’s side when needed. Our findings reveal that the situatedness of residents to the development projects (in terms of proximity, residential tenure and openness to change) causes neighbours to take opposing sides and that the conflicts generated are accentuated by the perceived failure of neighbours to meet their neighbourly obligations. The result is a loss of sense of place and belonging for all residents – not just those detrimentally impacted by the development – wrought by rising hostility and avoidance among neighbours, and an overall weakening of neighbourly ties.

This chapter reviews the conceptual developments in neighbour studies, charting the shift and bringing together older work on the ‘distance-closeness’ dynamic of neighbour relations with newer ‘equality of neighbours’ approaches. It seeks to empirically extend the sociology of neighbours through an analysis of the experiential narratives of neighbours living in contexts of urban multiculture in the United Kingdom. Drawing on two previous studies of urban multicultural social life and a small street study of neighbours in London, this chapter explores the everyday ‘publicness’ of the neighbour and examines the ways in which recent work on social infrastructure can be productively applied to neighbour relations. This chapter concludes that where cultural and social difference is a very ordinary – although not necessarily easy – experience, neighbour relations offer the potential to work as radical sites of pragmatic multiculturalism.

In March 2014, the minister responsible for public housing in the state of New South Wales in Australia announced that all 600 public housing tenants living in the historic heritage-listed adjacent inner-city neighbourhoods of Millers Point and The Rocks in Sydney were to be moved and the homes sold to the highest bidder on the open market. There were to be no exceptions, and the last public housing resident was moved from the area in July 2018. A common view is that public housing areas in countries with a residualised welfare system are characterised by attenuated social ties, anomie and bleakness. This chapter examines neighbouring, social ties, mutual assistance and sense of community among public housing tenants in Millers Point and demonstrates that this is not always the case. Drawing on 48 in-depth interviews with residents, plus observation, I show that the social connections among public housing tenants in the area were unusually strong and enduring. I argue that in order to understand why this was so, we need to look at the physical and social features of the area. Following on from the seminal work of Jane Jacobs, the New Urbanism movement argues that compactness, mixed land use and walkability are crucial enablers of social interaction and neighbourliness. These physical features were present in Millers Point. There is now a recognition by New Urbanism scholars that physical elements in themselves rarely create community and that the social features of neighbourhoods also have to be taken into account. In the case of the public housing tenants in inner Sydney, the key social features were longevity of residence and homogeneity. Another crucial aspect was a strong sense of social obligation. This was partially due to the presence of strong trade unionism in the area historically and the intermittent nature of employment at certain periods, which ensured neighbours rallied round to help those who were less fortunate.

Singapore, a multiracial nation, where 80% of the population resides in mid- to high-rise public housing estates, provides an interesting milieu to study neighbouring in the context of high-density living. Its geopolitical position and socio-demographic features – such as an ageing demographic, changing family structure, and increasingly diverse population – have rendered social cohesion an integral aspect of national and neighbourhood-level policies, programmes, and institutions. However, these programmes and policies are built on a relatively static national narrative around mutuality, harmony, and community bonding that rarely takes into consideration current social, temporal, and spatial constructions of neighbouring. It is in this light that we re-examine the social construction of ‘neighbours’ and ‘neighbourliness’ in Singapore using a holistic quality of life (QoL) framework to better understand both institutional and lived forms of neighbourliness. A mixed-methods research approach, comprising 243 semi-structured interviews (161 with a Q method component) and a large-scale survey comprising 3,134 participants, was conducted to explore and assess current norms, attitudes, and practices around neighbouring. Our findings show a dominant set of practices around neighbouring that are polite, minimal, and often referred to as ‘hi/bye’. we note two particular perspectives of the relative importance of neighbours in contributing to QoL and consider the effects of hi/bye neighbouring upon an older group of residents for whom neighbours are still important. This deeper understanding around neighbouring in public housing estates also brings relevant insights to related social cohesion policies and programmes.

In an urbanising world, neighbouring is perceived to be steadily losing significance and a remnant of the past. The same belief can also be found in China where rapid urbanisation has had a tremendous impact on the social networks and neighbourhood life of urban residents. This chapter challenges the common perception of neighbouring in demise and argues that neighbouring remains an important form of social relationship, even if the meanings and role of neighbouring have changed. This chapter first charts the changing role of neighbouring from the socialist era to post-reform China. It then provides an account of four common types of neighbourhoods in Chinese cities – work-unit estates, traditional courtyards, commodity housing estates and urban villages – and considers how and why neighbouring in different ways still matters to them. In pre-reform socialist China, neighbourhood life and neighbouring comprised much of the daily social life of residents. Since the reform era, with the proliferation of private commodity housing estates, middle-class residents prioritise comfort, security and privacy, such that neighbouring levels have subsided. Nevertheless, in other neighbourhood types, such as work-unit housing estates, traditional courtyards and urban villages, neighbours still rely upon one another for various reasons.