Neighborhood

Activity 1
Activity 2
Activity 3
Activity 4
Activity 5
Activity 6
Activity 7
Activity 8
Review
Explore
Relate
Gallery

What is a neighborhood? Cities are made up of neighborhoods. Since the beginning of time, this condition of prehistoric civilizations has occurred in all cultures, in both urban and rural landscapes. Neighborhoods, an Anglo-Saxon word, *neahgebur, or *nigh-dweller denote physical proximity, closeness, and neighborliness, or knowing persons as friends. Neighborhoods are defined areas where people live, work, learn, and play. Knowing your neighbors begins simply by meeting the people who live on either side of you or across the street. You may attend a neighborhood school and meet other families in the area. You may become familiar with the people in the drugstore, grocery store, hardware store, coffee shop, or local bakery. You may know some of the local pets on your block. As you begin to know people, you can help each other. Borrow a cup of sugar, make a meal for a sick person nearby, shovel the walk of an elderly person, dog-sit, or house-sit if people are traveling. Neighborhoods are communities where people feel a sense of belonging. What makes a good neighbor?

Activity 1 – Walking and Mapping Your Neighborhood

An excellent way to discover a neighborhood is to begin walking. As you walk, look for places where people live. You may find single family homes, duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes. Your neighborhood may have low rise apartment buildings. You may find a library, preschools, elementary, middle, and high schools or even universities in a neighborhood. You might come upon commercial buildings like grocery stores, coffee shops, bakeries, a bookstore, barbers, and beauty salons. Your neighborhood may have green squares, parks, and recreational fields that offer places to bike, sit, play sports, and meet others. How do you define your neighborhood? Where does your neighborhood begin, and where does it end? Draw a mental map of your neighborhood. Are there landforms such as lakes, rivers, hills, or mountains that form boundaries or edges? Are there central boulevards? Commercial Areas? Your School? Parks? Draw a map of your neighborhood. Label the streets and key destinations. Title your drawing with the name of your Neighborhood. Place a north arrow on the lower right-hand corner. Upload your mental map of your neighborhood to the gallery.

Activity 2 – Key Entries and Routes in your Neighborhood

Now, take a look at your neighborhood on Google Maps. Are there key entries into your neighborhood? Are there signs, gateways, or designated entries? Draw a map based on the Google map blocks and street names, and mark signs. Label the key landmarks, roads, buildings, homes, commercial areas, parks, etc. Then, draw and label the names of significant corridors, boulevards, and streets. Think about how people and goods move into, through, and out of your neighborhood. Consider walking, biking, and driving. Check out NEXT.cc’s Streets Journey to learn about different scales of streets. Most neighborhoods have commercial corridors, boulevards, avenues, streets, and alleys. Check to see if your neighborhood has dedicated bike lanes. Busier roads, or corridors, are wider, with traffic lights and mid-block pedestrian crossings to slow traffic and protect pedestrians and bikers. Boulevards with medians are more expansive, offering shady and planted areas. Some neighborhoods feature alleyways as passageways and mid-block pedestrian walkways. Map the Primary, secondary, and tertiary ways of moving through your neighborhood. Take daily walks. You begin to know the houses and the buildings, the landmarks and the parks, the commercial offerings, and the people. As you become familiar with the layout, destinations, and people in a neighborhood, you build local social and economic relationships. You learn about yourself and your relationship to the world right in the very place where you were born and grew up. Compare your cognitive map and your accurate map. How are they different? How are they the same?

Activity 3 – Neighborhood Amenities

What makes your community special? What does it have that other communities do not? Does it have a village hall? A movie theater? A church or religious building? A Library? Does it have a Bike shop or places to play outdoor basketball, tennis, soccer, softball, and pickleball? Neighborhoods exist as small villages, complete with everything people of all ages need. They have houses in which to live, schools in which to learn, stores in which to buy food and necessities, restaurants, places to learn, and places to enjoy. These amenities provide people with destinations to enjoy and contribute to the character of the neighborhood. Green spaces in the neighborhood are key to bring neighbors together. They might be triangular parks, pocket parks, courtyards, small forests, or even waterfronts, depending on where you are located. Create a word map of the locations of your favorite amenities in your neighborhood.

Activity 4 – Identify Homes and Housing

A house is a visual expression of values that change from generation to generation. An educated observer can “read” the values of a society from its buildings and houses. Individuals use housing styles to announce and shape their self-concept, share a craft of tradition, and suggest connections to heritage. American houses have three primary sources of inspiration: the Middle Ages, Ancient Greece and Rome, and contemporary ideas that seek to break ties with the past. In general, inspiration from the Middle Ages produces houses that are quaint, cozy, or romantic in feeling. Classical inspiration is seen as formal, orderly, and impressive. Modern homes can be small and practical or large and grandiose, resembling a museum. Together, these house styles offer a diverse range of lifestyles and aesthetics. Take a walk around your neighborhood. Each neighborhood has essential buildings. Housing often includes single-family homes, duplexes, apartment buildings, and condos. All of these types of habitats cultivate a diverse community. Draw a streetscape in your neighborhood that offers three different types of housing.

Activity 5 – Tree Canopies in Neighborhoods

Activity 6 – Parks and Recreation

Activity 7 – Key Districts in your Neighborhood

Your neighborhood will have records of the first buildings and homes. Often these first buildings and homes set the standards for creating the Neighborhood center, or place where people can come together to meet and to have special events. Centers may include a Village Hall, a Library, a Garden Center, a central park. Commercial districts will also have grocery stores, bakeries, hardware, restaurants, coffee shops, and bookstores. Districts may include elementary, middle, high school, and universities.