Neighborhood Context and Neighboring Ties

This article analyzes whether neighborhood context or environment in Seattle influences dimensions of social ties among neighbors, independent of the individual attributes of residents such as home ownership and socio-economic status. Three dimensions of neighbor ties are examined: interaction, organizing collectively, and knowing about neighbors. A number of environmental attributes are considered, including the age of the housing, residential stability, levels of affluence, the presence of blacks and foreign born, the concentration of commercial areas (heterogeneous land use), and the degree of upkeep in the area. While many are correlated with neighbor ties, few have a strong relationship with neighbor ties when individual attributes are controlled statistically. We find, in addition, that the importance of context varies with the type of neighbor tie. We discuss the implications of these findings for formulating a contextual theory of neighborhood life.