Neighborhood Stability and Self-Governance
30 Pages Posted: 15 Jul 2012 Last revised: 6 Sep 2012
Date Written: 2012
Abstract
Conventional wisdom suggests that urban neighborhoods are economically unstable places. Yet many urban neighborhoods remain economically healthy. How do we explain why neighborhoods vary in economic health? Following Jacobs (1961), we argue that differences in capacity for neighborhood self-governance explain variation in stability across neighborhoods. Neighborhoods with means to address local problems provide property owners with greater confidence in the neighborhood’s long term health. Using survey data from Minneapolis-St. Paul in 1982 and Seattle in 2003, we find that homeowners in neighborhoods with greater capacity for self-governance are less reliant on current neighborhood problems and conditions in forming expectations about the neighborhood’s future and in making plans to move. This suggests that neighborhood-level institutions play a significant stabilizing role in the supply of available housing in urban neighborhoods.
Keywords: Neighborhoods, stability, self-governance
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