Neighbourhood
This article is about neighbourhoods in cities. See also Neighbourhood (topology).A neighbourhood (in British English) or neighborhood (in American English) is a geographically localised community located within a larger city or suburb. The residents of a given neighbourhood are called neighbours (or neighbors), although this term may also be used across much larger distances in rural areas.
Traditionally, a neighbourhood is small enough that the neighbours are all able to know each other. However in practice, neighbours may not know one another very well at all. Villages aren't divided into neighbourhoods, because they are already small enough that the villagers can all know each other. The boroughs of New York City and Greater London are intermediate in size between the neighbourhoods that comprise them on the one hand and the entire city on the other.
In Canada and the United States, neighbourhoods are often given official or semi-official status through neighbourhood associations, or Block watch in Canada. These may regulate such matters as lawn care and fence height, and they may provide such services as block parties, neighbourhood parks, and community security. In some other places the equivalent organisation is the parish, a parish may have several neighbourhoods within it depending on the area.
In the People's Republic of China, the term is generally used for the urban administrative unit usually found immediately below the district level, although an intermediate, subdistrict level exists in some cities. Also called streets (administrative terminology varies from city to city). Neighborhoods encompass 2,000 to 10,000 families. Within neighborhoods, families are grouped into smaller residential units of 100 to 600 families and supervised by a residents' committee; these are subdivided into residents' small groups of fifteen to forty families. (see political divisions of China)
Some well-known neighbourhoods include:
- in Chicago
- in London:
- Notting Hill in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea:
- in Westminster:
- in Los Angeles:
- Hollywood
- South Central
- in New York City:
- Montmartre in Paris
- in San Francisco:
- The Castro
- The Haight
- The Mission District
- Georgetown in Washington
- in Toronto:
