Keith Hampton, a dear friend and colleague, just put together a site called i-neighbors. Keith is a sociologist interested in neighborhood communities (and their online equivalent) and this site is dedicated to supporting physical neighborhoods in the States and Canada.

Signing up for the site made me contemplate what it means to be in a neighborhood. I live near Folsom and 24th in San Francisco. I firmly identify as living in the Mission. My version of the Mission is quite a bit different than the one inhabited by my friends who live at Guerrero and Liberty, but we both identify as Mission residents. There are gangs in my neighborhood. The cut-off appears to be 21st. Do the two different gangs both identify as living in the same neighborhood? What about my Mexican neighbors - do they identify with the shi-shi folks on Liberty? My neighbors are obsessed with our block and keeping the meth addicts, homeless drunks and gun shots far away.

What constitutes a neighborhood in a city? How does class, race, religion and ethnicity play a part? Do i really live in a neighborhood bounded by zipcode or is my neighborhood also bounded by education level and transience? Of course, i’m guessing that this is exactly the boundary that Keith wants to tear down.

[Conversation on said topic already occurring at apophenia]