A Study of Local Life in the City of Columbus, Ohio. I. Author(S): RD

The Neighborhood: A Study of Local Life in the City of Columbus, Ohio. I. Author(s): R. D. McKenzie Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Sep., 1921), pp. 145-168 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2764821 . Accessed: 20/05/2014 12:20

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JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

VOLUME XXVII SEPTEMBER I92I NUBER 2

THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE IN THE CITY OF COLUMBUS, OHIO

R. D. McKENZIE Universityof Washington

ABSTRACT City structure. Cities are usually classified according to size. They may be also classifiedaccording to the nature and organizationof their leading industries. Land valuations in the forms of business,industrial, and residentialutilities, largely determine the structure of the modern city. Every city has its central business district, located near the geographicalcenter of the city. Sub-businessdistricts tend to form at street-car crossings and around neighborhoodinstitutions. The basic industriesare usually located around the outskirts of the city's corporation,while manufacturingestablishments employing women are usually located near the center of the city. Real estate values distributea city's populationinto variousresidential sections of differenteconomic and social status. Racial and nationality bonds tend to subgroupthe populationwithin the various economicareas. Mobilityof population. The term implies the extent to which the individualvaries his environment, either by changeof residenceor by use of secondarymeans of communication. The mobilityof modernlife facilitatesdisorganization of traditionalgroup and institutional structures. It is a measureof progress,but at the same time aggravatesmany of our politicaland socialproblems. Changeof residenceis much more frequentamong the lowereconomic classes in Columbusthan among the well-to-do. But dependence upon local institutions is considerablygreater in the poorer neighborhoodsthan in the better residentialsections, on account of inability to use secondarymeans of communication.

PART I. LOCAL LIFE WITHIN THE CITY I. CITY STRUCTURE Columbus is a city of about 2IO,000 inhabitants, accordingto the latest census. There are forty-three other cities in the United States, which, from the point of view of population, fall in the same I45

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class.' Of these cities eleven are in the New England states, eight in the Middle Atlantic, seven in the East North Central, two in the West North Central, two in the Mountain, and five in the Pacific states. Inasmuch as the modern city is largely an industrial institution it is important to know the nature of a city's leading industries. Eighteen of the cities in questionhavefor their main industrythe pro- duction of iron and steel products,eight have textiles and clothing, four lumber, three boots and shoes, three baking and confectionery, two publishing and printing, two preserving and canning, one rubber goods, one furniture,one jewelry, and one cotton-seed oil.2 These cities may again be classified according to the relative importance of their leading industries. Nine of the forty-four cities of this group are characterizedby the national importance of their major industries.3 For example, Patterson, Fall River, Lowell, and Lawrence, all of which are located in Massachusetts, belong to the textile and clothing group and have their industries organized on a nation-wide sale of products. Similarly, Akron with its rubbergoods, GrandRapids with its furniture,Youngstown with its iron and steel products, represent the type of city with a single dominant industry organized on a national scale. The majority of the cities in this group, however, are not characterized by a single outstanding industry but possess numerous small industries of approximately the same size, the larger part of their business being limited to local trading areas. Cities with this type of industrial life may be called diversified cities.4 Columbus

'The estimated population of Columbus for I9I6 was 209,722. It belongs to the third group of American cities, those having a, population of Ioo,ooo to 300,000. There was a total of forty-four cities in this group in I9I6. General Statistics of Cities (I9I6). 2 This classification was made from the Census of Manufactures, Vol. I (I9I4), and is based on census returns (I9I0). Undoubtedly in several instances the leading industry of I9I0 is not the leading industry of today. The industry employing the greatest total number of employees was taken as the leading industry. 3 Cities in which the major industry employed more than twice as many workers as the industry next in order, and more than the total listed for the classification, "all other industries" I have classified here, as "single-industry cities." 4 See C. A. Beard, American City Government(I9I2), pp. 26-29, for a classification of types of American municipalities.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:20:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE 147 belongs in this latter class.' It has three relatively important types of industry: foundry and machine-shop products; the construction of cars, locomotives, and heavy machinery, and the manufactureof boots and shoes. Most of our great cities are circular or star shaped unless directly modified by geographical peculiarities. This structure is due to the inherentnature of city development,when uncontrolled by conscious design. "Whatever the type of city, growth consists of movement away from the point of origin, and is of two kinds; central, or in all directions, and axial, or along the water courses, railroads and turnpikes which form the framework of cities."2 Columbus is shaped like a Greek cross. Its two leading thoroughfares,Broad and High streets, intersect at right angles near the junction of the Sciota and Olentangy rivers. High Street, the business backbone of the city, runs north and south for a distance of about nine miles within the corporationlimits. Broad Street, on the other hand, runs east and west, or nearly so, and forms the arm of the cross. This street comprises part of the old Lincoln Highway. Topography has had something to do in de- terminingthe rough outlines of the city's structure. The junction of the two rivers just mentioned furnishes the basis for the crosslike appearanceof the city. Expansion has followed the lines of least resistance along the south side of the Sciota River and the east bank of the Olentangy. The distribution of business, industry, and population within the confines of any large city is determined by the operation of economic forces which tend to produce certain similarities of structure with respect to all big cities. Generallyspeaking, the utility of land in the city falls into three classes: business utility, industrial utility, and residential utility. The areas devoted to these purposes are separated by more or less definite lines and are themselves

I Columbus, like almost every other city of its size, manufactures articles which are sold throughout the entire country, also in foreign lands, but Columbus is not dominated by any particular industry, nor does it have the habit of advertising in any of the national journals such as the Post, Literary Digest, etc. 2 Richard M. Hurd, Principles of City Land Values (Record and Guide, 1903). Adapted as a reading in Marshall, Wright, and Field, Materials for the Study of Ele- mentaryEconomics (I9I3), p. 620.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:20:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions I48 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY subdivided according to the specific nature or class of use for each purpose. Business area for instance lies generally at the focus of local transportation routes or in other words at the point of intersection of the strongest lines of local

MAP OF COLUMBUS, OHIO SHOWING RACIAL,NATI-ONAL,AND , . n \\ >\ INDUSTRIALLOCALITIES 1918 = 16 Scale of Miles

" \~~~~~~~~~~~~1~ Fair L

0~~~~~~~~ @Ilndustrial . Areas t. A|e ,S2><3GermanNeighborhood I '^ ...... Scattered NeqroFamilies -...... J %' IF.Solid Negro Sections ...... p/t\" 00OJ ewish Sections r/

Frank 44<+...Rouman ian Section n-

__.....ward Boundaries 3.Ward Numbers

MAP I

travel. This point is very often at the geographical center of the city which can be reached from all sections of the city with equal facility. The industrial area on the other hand has no one definite location, as has the business area. Depending largely on railroad facilities, it soon becomes scattered throughout

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:20:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE I49 all sections of the city, forcing its way from all directions in wedges almost to the business heart. There is generally no control and no concentration other than that offered by the railroad lines. To residential purposes is devoted the rest of the land in the city. This is generally of three classes: fine residential area; general residential area; and tenement area. The first of these preempts those sections of the city which have the greatest number of pleasing and natural advantages. The second, in general, lies along the thoroughfares and highways which have the best transportation facilities and also along such railroads as provide suburban transportation. The third class, the tenement areas, are generally found in the industrial regions and in the pockets or areas that lie between railroad lines and close to the center.' The central business section of Columbus, as indicated on Map I, is located near the geographical center of the city. It comprises an area of about half a mile in length and three blocks in width, the central part of which is the junction of the two streets already mentioned. This is the cornerof the State House grounds, also the site of the city's leading hotel. One does not feel that he is "down town" until he reaches this corner.2 Immediately surroundingthe central business section of most cities is to be found a more or less disintegrated area, comprising wholesale establishments,low class hotels and apartment houses, second-hand stores, and cheap places of amusement. This region is usually inhabitated by a migratory class of people, such as day laborers, immigrants, and negroes. It also tends to become the rendezvousof the vicious and criminal classes. The factors distributing values over the city's area by attracting or repuls- ing various utilities, are, in the case of residences, absence of nuisances, good approach, favorable transportation facilities, moderate elevation, and parks;

I E. H. Bennett, "Planning for Distribution of Industries,"Annals of the American Academy (January, I914), pp. 2I7-I8. 2 Referring to the defects of the round city John P. Fox, Secretary of the Transit Committee, City Club of New York, writes, "The round city, as found in America, tends to have a congested business center, with high buildings, high land values, high rents, congested streets and similar faults. It tends to require riding to and from work, especially if one wishes to live anywhere near the country. It requires too many radiating streets to reach surrounding territory, using more land than necessary. It makes it impossible to build one adequate rapid transit line to serve all the central district and the residence sections. It buries most people in its midst too far from the country, the latter being reached only by riding, which many poor people cannot afford to do."-"Relation between Transit and Housing," Annals of the American Academy (January, I9I4), p. i6o.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:20:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions I50 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY in the case of retail shops, passing street traffic,with a tendency toward proximityto their customer'sresidences; in the case of retail wholesalersand light manufacturing,proximity to the retail storeswhich are their customers; in the caseof heavywholesaling or manufacturing,proximity to transportation; and in the case of public or semi-publicbuildings, for historicalreasons, proximityto the old businesscenter; the land that is finallyleft beingfilled in with mingledcheap utilities, parasites of the strongerutilities, which give a low earningpower to land otherwisevalueless.x Such a disintegrated area is quite conspicuous in the city of Columbus. Surrounding the main business section on all sides for a distance of from one to a dozen blocks there is a black and grimy area unfit for human habitation. Here cheap boarding houses and questionable hotels are wedged in between large ware- houses and wholesale establishments. This region is very largely given over to colored people and poor whites.2 Prior to the sup- pression of segregated vice in the city a considerable part of this section was occupied by keepers of immoral resorts. The eastern part of this district contained, in the early days, the homes of many of the wealthiest residents of the city. However, with the expansion of business and the development of modern means of transit, the well-to-do moved farther east along Broad Street, leaving their now obsolete homes to be used as places of business or to be subdivided into cheap apartments for the poor. Most of our cities, due to theirrapid growth, have districtsthat are going througha transitionfrom resident districtsto factory and businessdistricts. Rents from dwellingsare decreasing,while land value is greatlyincreasing. The ownersof many of these homes, foreseeingthe opportunityto sell the land for businesspurposes in one year or ten years,will not repairor improve their houses, becausethey argueit would be a waste to put more money in the housesthat will in themselvesbring no returnwhen sellingthe land.3 The primary industries of most cities tend to be located near the outskirts of the city's corporation, along water fronts and

I Richard M. Hurd, op. cit., p. 620. 2 In his study of 4,500 employees in factories located in Norwood and Oakley, suburbs of Cincinnati, Graham Romeyn Taylor found that "nearly half, or 44.68 per cent, live in thickly populated parts of down-town Cincinnati, five miles from their work."-Satellite Cities, p. 97. 3 Mildred Chadsey, "The Old House as a Social Problem," Annals of the American Academy (January, I9I4), p. 87.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:20:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE I5I railroad tracks. Smaller industries, especially those employing women and unskilled labor, seek low-priced areas near street-car lines and so may be located in almost any part of the city. Around the primary industries independent communities develop which have a life of their own distinct from the rest of the city, such, for example, as the stockyard district of Chicago. Subcommunities of another type, due to the difference of population selection, form around any important center, such as a university, park, school, or other public institution. Transferpoints, owing to concentrationof daily streamsof people and consequentopportunity for shops, are strategicpoints in a city's area, creating businesssubcenters, whose prospects of increasingvalues are limitedonly by the numberand qualityof the people likely to utilizethem. As examples, note the markedeffect of transfersin New York at Broadwayand 34th Street, MadisonAvenue and 59th Street, LexingtonAvenue and 59th Street; also in New Haven at Chapeland Churchstreets; in Denverat Isth andLawrence streets; and many transferpoints in the outlyingdistricts of Chicago.' Columbus has three significant industrial communities. One is located in the twelfth ward and contains the plants of the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company, which employs about 4,000 men, and the High Malleable Company, which employs about 700 men. The second industrial area lies along the Sciota River, extending from First Avenue down to the center of the city. In this district are the plants of the Lamneck Furnace Company, the Nye and Sons Stove Company, and the Hulse Furniture Company. The third industrial section is found in the south end of Columbus. Here are the large steel industries of the city, including the Buckeye Steel Casting Company, the Columbus Branch of the American Rolling Mill Company, the Seagraves Manufacturing Company, and others. In addition to these manufacturing areas the shops of the different railroads form other industrial communities. The Hocking Valley Shops are located in a bend of the Sciota River in the western part of Ward 2, making this section of the ward much less stable than the remaining German part of it which lies east of High Street. Similarly the large Pennslyvania Shops, located a short distahce northeast of the United States barracks, account for the mixed foreign and negro section found there.

IRichard M. Hurd, op. cit., p. 622.

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Each of these industrial areas has a more or less distinctive community life of its own. The residents of these communities are very largely people who work in the nearby industries. While their economic status is that of the day-laboring class still their population elements comprise a mixture of practically all racial and national stocks. There is a distinct tendency, as may be seen by Map I, for the different racial and linguistic groups to form little colonies within these industrial communities. This is especially noticeable with respect to the industrial area surrounding the South Columbus Steel Works. This is a motley district, practically every street represents a different racial or national aggregation. The population of any city is distributedaccording to economic status into residentialareas of various rental or real estate values. Family income tends to segregate the population of a city into different economic districts much the same as the price of tickets at a theater divides the audience into several different strata of economic and social distinction. The main considerationin the individualselection of a residencelocation is the desireto live amongone's friendsor amongthose whom one desiresto have for friends; for which reasonthere will be as many residenceneighbor- hoodsin the city as thereare socialstrata.' In order to bring into relief the various levels of economic distribution of the population of Columbus a measure of comparative economic status was sought. It was finally decided to take the average per elector tax returns on household furniture as a standard of rating. Household furniture returns are listed from the home address rather than from the down-town office, and, therefore, furnish a territorial distribution of this sort of property. The returns were calculated by wards and the totals divided by the number of registered electors for the same year in each ward.2 The measure of economic status here adopted is not without its shortcomings. In the first place the ward is not a homogeneous economic area. It frequently includes the extremes of wealth and

IRichard M. Hurd, op. cit., p. 62I. 2 The ward totals were divided by the number of registered electors rather than by the number of householders, inasmuch as each householder is allowed one hundred dollars tax exemption on furniture, and, therefore, in the lower economic regions only a small percentage of the families made returns at all.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:20:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE I53 poverty. This is true, for example, with respect to the sixth ward, the eastern end of which contains some of the most luxuriant homes in the city, while the western corner represents a brokendown colored section. But, on the whole, the classification of

MAP OF COLUM BUS, OHIO SHOW N G N ~~~~~~~~DIVISIONOF CITY INTO

OleHoqyx ECONOMICAREAS .~~~~c rlnop9a BY WARDS I ~~~~~~~~~~BASEDON . _j s(,3. PERSONALPROPERTY RETURNS I91S

AR IS

WARD 1.

FronilOto14 -'X4| e.

R T

LEGEND Less than $60 perteectot. I o m c '77 From$60 to $100oo

From$lOO0to 140 .'

From $140 to 200SceoMis

From 200 cnd overe i 0* 2 Neighborhood ?0 Settlement House

MAP II wards, as determined by this form of measurement, corresponds almost precisely with the common-senserating as based on general observation. The foregoingmap (Map II) indicates the results of this study.

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The first impression gained from an examination of this map will be the striking difference in economic status of the various wards in the city. Wards 4 and 5 with their economic status of $202 and $2I9 respectively, stand in bold contrast to Wards 9 and Io whose per elector status is less than one quarter as great. The latter wards, as may be seen by Map III (p. I63) are also the most mobile sections of the city. Wards I5 and i6 comprisethe university district and representthe middle class type of home. The relatively low rating of Ward ii is due to the presence of a large negro colony located near its southern border, also to a disintegrated neighborhood lying north of the State Hospital for the Insane. On the other hand, Ward i is probably rated a bit too -high. This is a foreign locality surroundingthe South Columbus Steel Works and our measure of economic status applies merely to citizens. Racial and national sentiments tend to subgroup the population of the different economic areas of a city into more intimate social divisions. "Every great city has its racial colonies, like the Chinatowns of San Francisco and New York, the Little Sicily of Chicago, and various other less pronounced types."' Columbus has several such racial and national colonies, each with a more or less distinct social life of its own. The coloredpopulation,2 as may be noted on Map I (p. I48), is, in general, distributed around the periphery of the main business section, along the river flood plains, near the railroad tracks, and around the industrial plants. Most of Ward 9 is inhabitated by colored people. During the past few years the colored families, especially the new arrivals from the South, have been pushing their way out into Ward I4, driving the Italians, who previously occupied this territory,still farther north. The northernboundary line of Ward 9, Goodale Street, is now almost entirely inhabitated

'Robert E. Park, "The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the City Environment," American Journal of Sociology, XX, 582. 2 In I9IO Columbus had a colored population of I2,739, which, when compared with the total population of the city, constituted at that time a higher percentage of negroes than was to be found in any other city in the state. Moreover this number has been greatly augmented by the influx of negroes from the South during the past few years.

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by negroes. The river end of this street, together with the immediately surrounding territory, was originally known as "Fly Town," receiving this name on account of the migratorytendencies of workers employed in the nearby factories, also on account of the lawlessnessof the place. In this section the Godman Guild Social Settlement House is located. The largest colored community in the city lies just east of the central business district. This community includes practically all of Ward 7 with the exception of a few streets on which are located some of the best residences in the city. It also extends into the southwesterncorner of Ward 6, the eastern half of Ward 8, and the western part of Ward 4. The central part of this colored community lies north of Long Street between Seventeenth Street and Taylor Avenue. This region is undisputably surrenderedto negroes. It is a city of blacks within the larger community. Here are found coloredpolicemen, colored hotels, stores, churches,poolrooms, picture theaters, as well as separate colored schools. The colored people have their own local organizations such as lodges, war-relief clubs, and a political organization called "The Negro Republican League." Of the minor negro colonies indicated on Map I attention should be called to the one in the extreme south end of the city, adjoining the steel plants; to the colored neighborhood in the eleventh ward, referenceto which will be made later; to the colored district surroundingthe Jeffrey ManufacturingPlant in Ward 12, and to the smallercolored localities adjoiningthe university campus. Columbus has one large Jewish colony, lying a few blocks east of the southern end of the main business section of the city. This district is bounded on the north by Rich Street, on the east by Parsons Avenue, on the south by Livingston Avenue, and on the west by Grant Street. In this quadrangle, comprising about twelve city blocks, there is located the Jewish Schonthal Commu- nity House, Temple Israel, the Agudas, Achim Synagogue,Tiffereth Israel Synagogue, the Beth Jacob Synagogue, the Ahavath Sholen Synagogue, and the Jewish Progress Club. The area described, however, is not inhabitated entirely by Hebrews. The population is a mixture of colored and Jewish people. This is the home of

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:20:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions I56 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY the Orthodox Jews of Columbus.' The so-called " Reformed" Jews, which include, as a rule, the Jews of German nationality, are dispersed along the eastern section of the city in the better residential district between Broad Street and Bryden Road. The renowned Germansection2 of the city extends along South High Street from Livingston Avenue as far south as Washington Park, bounded on the east by Parsons Avenue, and on the west by the Hocking Valley tracks. It comprises an area of about a square mile and falls, for the most part, within the second ward. Many of the most prominent of the old German families reside along High Street south of Livingston Avenue. Practically all of these families own their homes and many of them have resided here for over thirty years. The whole community, just outlined, is fundamentally German. The dwellings represent the typical German village structure, built close up to the sidewalk, with garden space and chicken house in the rear. Many of the alleys are lined with small residences. Frequently the owner of a fine home will have a small building on the rear of his lot occupied by a tenant family. The shops, churches, and other public places of this district are owned and operated by Germans, and the Germanlanguage is used almost exclusively. Lying immediately south of this German neighborhood and extending to the southern limits of the city is a mixed foreign district, inhabitated by Austrians, Lithuanians, Hungarians, and Italians. II. MOBILITY "The city is the spectroscopeof society; it analyzes and sifts the population, separating and classifying the diverse elements."3 Mobility of population may be considered under three heads: change of residence from one community to another, change of 'This is the historic Jewish neighborhood of Columbus and is noted for the solidarity of its local life. Graham Taylor says, ". . . . The family-like fellowships persistently growing out of and around the Jewish synagogue, which is the most ancient type of the neighborhood still surviving, perpetuate the spirit of neighborliness and give it more or less flexible, but long accepted, forms of development."-Religion in Social Action (I9I3), p. I49. 2 According to the I9IO Census, Columbus had 5,722 foreign-born Germans, which was the largest single foreign-born nationality in the city (Thirteenth Census of United States, III, 428). 3 A. F. Weber, The Growthof Cities in the Nineteenth Century (I899), p. 442.

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residencefrom one neighborhoodto another within the community, and mobility without change of residence.' The official sources of information on these subjects are very inadequate. The census reports furnish data concerning nationality and interstate migrations,2 but aside from that we know nothing about the movements of people from one community to another,3much less the movements that take place within the community itself. That the mobility of modern life is intimately connected with many of our social problems there is general consensus of opinion. Assuming that a reasonableamount of mobility is both inevitable and desirable, nevertheless it is unquestionably true that the excessive population movements of modern times are fraught with many serious consequences. Perhaps the most obvious effect of the mobility of the population within a city is the striking instability of local life. Neighbor- hoods are in a constant process of change; some improving, others deteriorating. Changes in incomes and rents are almost immediatelyregistered in change of family domicile. Strengthened economic status usually implies the movement of a family from a poorer to a better neighborhood,while weakened economic status means that the family must retire to a cheaper and less desirable district.4 So in every city we have two general types of neighbor- I Robert E. Park says . . . . "Mobility in an individual or in a population is measured, not merely by change of location, but rather by the number and variety of the stimulations to which the individual or the population responds. Mobility depends, not merely upon transportation, but upon communication."-American Journal of Sociology, XX, 589. 2 The I910 Census records the percentage of the population of each state born within the state. This gives a general impression of the relative mobility of the different states. The percentage of people born within the state in which they were counted varies from 94.7 for North Carolina to 21.8 for Wyoming. Ohio is above the average in stability with a percentage of native born of 74.4 (Thirteenth Census of United States, I, 7I2). 3 See Bucher's Industrial Evolution (Wickett translation), chap. x, for an interesting study of internal migrations of population in Germany. He shows that of the population of Prussia, in i88o, 57.6 per cent were born in the municipality where enumerated (p. 354), and for Bavaria (I87I) 6i . 2 per cent (p. 355). 4 "A study of five hundred families who, in I9I3, moved from one home to another has clearly shown that in 63 per cent of the cases poorer accommodations were secured because of a recent change in the family income which caused a necessary change in the amount of rent that could be spared."-Carol Aronovici, Housing and the Housing Problem (I920), p. 20.

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hood; the one whose inhabitants have located there on the basis of personal choice, and the other whose inhabitants have located there as the result of economic compulsion. The former, as we shall see later, contains the possibilities for the development of neighborhood sentiment and organization,while the latter lacks the necessary elements for reconstruction. Rapid community turnover also plays havoc with local standards and neighborhoodmores. It is impossibleto have an efficient local opinion in a neighborhoodwhere the people are in constant move. It has repeatedly been affirmedby students of society that the decay of local standards is a pertinent cause of moral laxness and disorderliness. We are dependent for moral health upon intimate association with a group of some sort, usually consisting of our family, neighbors, and other friends. It is the interchange of ideas and feelings with this group, and a constant sense of its opinions that makes standards of right and wrong seem real to us ..... When we move to town, or go to another country, or get into a different social class, or adopt ideas that alienate us from our former associates, it is not at all certain that we shall form new relations equally intimate and cogent with the old. A common result, therefore, is a partial moral isolation and atrophy of moral sense. If the causes of change are at all general we may have great populations made up largely of such displaced units, a kind of "anarchy of spirits" among whom there is no ethos or settled system of moral life at all, only a confused outbreak of impulses, better or worse.I The flux of modern life also intensifies all problems connected with government,national, state, or local. The fact that we have a residence qualification for voting leaves an increasingly large number every year of disfranchised citizens. This too applies especially to a class, the migrant laborer,which has no other means of participation in social control. Our distinguished critic, James Bryce, drew attention years ago to the relation between mobility and government. In no state of the union is the bulk of the population so fixed in its residence as everywhere in Europe; in many it is almost nomadic. Except in some of the stagnant districts of the South, nobody feels rooted to the soil. Here today and gone tomorrow, he cannot readily contract habits of trustful dependence on his neighbors. Community of interest, or of belief in such a cause

I C. H. Cooley, Social Process, pp. i8o-8i.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:20:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE I59 as temperance, or protection for native industry, unites him for a time with others similarly minded, but congenial spirits seldom live long enough together to form a school or type of local opinion which develops strength and becomes a proselytizing force. Perhaps this tends to prevent the growth of variety of opinion. When a man arises with some power of original thought in politics, he is feeble if isolated, and is depressed by his insignificance, whereas if he grows up in a favorable soil with sympathetic minds around him, whom he can in prolonged intercourse permeate with his ideas, he learns to speak with confidence and soars on the wings of his disciples. One who considers the variety of conditions under which men live in America may certainly find ground for surprise that there should be so few independent schools of opinion.' Students of municipal government are constantly calling attention to the difficulty of creating interest in municipal affairs among a people who are in constant move.2 Stability of residence, as a rule, implies home ownership,which in turn gives rise to local sentiment and interest in neighborhoodsurroundings. In a region where the population is continually shifting there is little opportunity for the development of neighborhood sentiment, and as a result, local concerns are usually left to take care of themselves. It is hard to develop interest in neighborhoodaffairs among families who are the while conscious of the temporary nature of their domicile within the district. The problems which the mobility of population presents to political reformersare likewise common to social workers in other fields. Organizations dealing with delinquency and dependency are hampered in their efforts by the frequent movements of their "cases."3 Similarly the church, trade union, and other voluntary forms of association lose in their efficiency through the rapid turnover of their local membershiplists.4

I American Commonwealth,II (I907), 289-90.

2Hart (Actual Government,pp. 2I0-II) points out that the American habit of moving is an important cause of bad city government. Goodwin in his Municipal Government,p. 26, also emphasizes the relation of population movement to the problem of local government. 3 In a study of 324 newly "closed" cases, in the records of the Social Welfare League of Seattle, it was found that the average length of time the families were under the jurisdiction of the organization was five months; and the average number of changes of residence during that period was 2. 2. Moreover, 45.8 per cent of the cases were closed because the family had moved away from the city.

4 In a study made of 2,049 resignations from the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, (June, I9I7, to December, I920,) Mr. Suen Chen, a student in sociology, discovered

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In considering the general causes of the present mobility of population it is important to view the subject from both its psycho- logical and its social aspects. Thomas and Znanieckihave grouped the dominant individual wishes or desires into four general classes: "the desire for recognition or status; the desire for safety or security; the desire for power; the desire for new experiences."' It is of course obvious that the relative strength of these different desires varies in different individuals and at different ages in the same individual. E. L. Thorndike says, "old age, femaleness, and physical weakness" . . . . seem to favor "the long familiar physical and social environment," while "adolescence, maleness, and energy"2 seem to be combined with the roaming disposition. Of the four types of desires just mentioned the desires for security and recognition find their chief satisfactions in the solidarity and intimacy of the small local group; while the desires for power and new experience attain their fullest fruition in a wider social milieu. The rigoristic codes of the small stable community have never affordedadequate satisfaction to the human impulses of the more energetic members of the group. The solidarity of the primitive neighborhood group was undoubtedly, to a greater extent, the product of a hostile external environment rather than the result of spontaneoushuman impulses. As Stuckenbergsays, " Frequently the inherent qualities of men have less power to unite than the desire to antagonize what is averse to them. . . . . Preju- dice, hatred, and opposition are powerful factors in association."3 that 764 or 37.3 per cent of those resigning had been members of the organization less than one year; 787 or 38.3 per cent had been members more than one year but less than two years; 328 or i6.i per cent had been members more than two years but less than three years; while the remaining i 70 or 8.I per cent had been members three years or more. Moreover, 604 or 29.4 per cent of the total number resigning gave as their reason for leaving the organization change of residence to another community. The present membership of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce (December, I920) is 3,034; of this number 634 or 20. 9 per cent have been members for one year or less; I,I97 or 39.4 per cent have been members for two years or less; and I,5I7 or half the total number have been members for three years or less. I The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (I9I8), I, 73. 2 OriginalNature of Man, I (I9I3), 56. 3 Sociology, the Science of Human Society, I, 86.

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Adam Smith contrasts the strong clan-feeling which still in the eighteenth century prevailed among the Scotch Highlanders with the little regard felt for remote relatives by the English, and observes that in countries where the authority of the law is not sufficiently strong to give security to every member of the State the different branches of the same family choose to live in the neighborhood of one another, their association being frequently necessary for their common defence: whereas in a country like England, where the authority of the law was well established, "the descendants of the same family, having no such motive for keeping together, naturally separate and disperse, as interest or inclination may direct.", On the social side it is scarcely necessary to draw attention to the leading causes of intercommunity migration. The sudden change from a predominantly agricultural to a predominantly industrial society has occasioned a mobility of life unknown before. As long as the soil furnished the chief basis of economic income man was obliged to live a comparatively stable life in a fixed and definite locality. With the development of the modern capitalistic regime, the presence of the individual is no longer necessary to insure the productivity and security of his property. He may now, if he choses, invest his savings in interest-bearing securities which require neither his personalpresence nor his attention to insure an income. He is thus left free to live, if he so desires, a nomad life.2 Of course all classes in society are not equally free to move about. The middle-class tradesman and many of the professionalgroups are more or less tied to definite localities by the very nature of their work. On the other hand, the well-to-do and the day-laborerare free to move almost at will. Our modern factory system is the chief cause of the present migratory tendencies of the wage-earningclass. In an open labor market with employers competing with one another in their demands for labor, the wage earner is fast becoming a sort of tourist who spends but a short period in each community during his trip around the country. Seasonalor intermittentoccupations, temporary jobs, commercialdepres- sions,occasional unemployment, and a generalsense of the lack of permanency

I E. Westermarck, Moral Ideas, II (I908), 223. 2 See Godkin, Problems of Modern Democracy, pp. i8o f., for a brief discussion of this subject.

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in the tenureof theirindustrial positions, pull settled familiesup by the roots and seldom leave them long enoughin one place to take root again. Our manualworkers are more and moretransient. Many amongthem are forced to becometramping families.' Moreover, change of residence from one section to another within the community is quite as disturbing to neighborhood association as is movement from one community to another. In order to get an idea of the comparative mobility of the population of the various local areas in Columbus, a study was made of the changes in the lists of the registeredelectors during the period of one year. The records of each year's registration are listed by precincts by the city's Board of Elections. The I9I7 list of names was comparedwith the I9I8 list, and the percentage of names per precinct of the I917 list that reappearedin the I9I8 list was taken as a measure of the relative stability of the precinct. For example, if a certain precinct had ioo registered electors for I917 and only 75 of these names reappeared in the I9I8 list the percentage stability of that precinct would be rated as 75. The city is divided into 262 precincts, each of which comprises about two or three blocks. The average registered electorate per precinct was, in I9I8, I75. From this small geographicalunit it is possible to get a rather intimate knowledge of the extent of local mobility of population. Taking the city as a whole, only 58.6 per cent of the registered electors of I9I7 re-registeredin I9I8. In other words, of the quali- fied voters of I9I7, almost one-half failed to requalify to vote in their old precincts in I9I8. The percentage of registration of electors varies greatly, of course, in the different sections of the city, precincts ranging from 3I.0 per cent to 77.8 per cent. The most mobile precinct is located in Ward 9 near the Sciota River, while the most stable precinct lies in the center of the old German neighborhoodin the northerncorner of Ward I. Map III gives the results of such tabulation by precincts for the entire city. This map gives a picture of the relative stability of different sections of the city when judged by the single criterion of the

I Graham Taylor, Religion in Social Action (I913), pp. I43-44.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:20:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE I63 re-registrationof electors. It does not show the actual extent of shifting of population within any particular spot. Failure to re-registeris not definite proof that the elector has migrated from

N6MOB oILIeY Se oPiULe ION

l Ole t a CHANGESOFRESIDENCEOF ELECTORSl . . 0 _ ~~e , CITYVOTING REGISTRATION FORI YEAR PERIOD

whore-registered jn19191711918

60 tandover fnMwle sc le

D Neighborhood ? Settlement House ' -

MAP III

the confines of his precinct. He may merely have omitted to perform this privilege of citizenship. On the other hand, movements of non-citizens are not recordedin this study. But, despite

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these limitations, I believe the method here employed furnishes an approximately true picture of the comparative population movements of different sections of the city. It is quite evident from this map that the down-town section, including the main business area and its immediately surrounding territory, is by far the most mobile part of the city. But this is to be expected, consideringthe nature of this section. As we have already seen, most of the people living near the business center are of the boarding-houseand cheap hotel class. The more stable parts of the city are to be found, for the most part, in the better residential districts, in the eastern, northern, and western ex- tremities of the city. The large German neighborhood, lying immediately south of the main business section, practically all falls in the class of highest stability, while the industrial area, located farther south in Ward i, comprisesone of the most mobile sections of Columbus. The correlationbetween stability and economic status is quite interesting. For ocular demonstration of this relationship the reader should compareMap III, page I63, with Map II, page I53. It must be borne in mind, however, that Map III is constructed on the basis of a small unit, the precinct, while Map II is based on the ward as the unit. Now taking the ward averages for stability and comparingthem with the ward averages for economic status we get the result shown in Table I. This table shows, in general, that stability varies directly with economic status. For example, Ward 9, which has the lowest economic status of all the wards in the city, has also the lowest re-registrationof electors, which means the lowest stability. Like- wise, Wards 8 and I2, which are considerablybelow the average in economic status, are also below the average in stability. On the other hand, Wards 4, 5, and i6 fall considerablyabove the average in stability, and rank high in economic status. Wards 2 and 3 appear to be exceptions; they have high stability and low economic status. But as we have already seen these wards contain the large stable Germanneighborhood, the residentsof which, while home owners and relatively prosperous,maintain a lower standard of living than the average American of similar economic status.

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Let us now examine the relation between mobility, dependency, and juvenile delinquency. The two spot maps (IV and V) facing page i66 show the geographical distribution of the official cases of dependency and juvenile delinquency for a one-year period, May, i9i8, to May, I9I9. As might be expected the majority of the dependency cases are segregated in the low economic areas surroundingthe central business district. The colored cases form conspicuousgroups near the railroad tracks and the river, also in the eastern part of the city near Franklin Park. TABLE I RELATION BETWEEN WARD STABILITY AND ECONOMICSTATUS

Average Average Ward Re-registration Economic per Ward Status (per cent) per Ward

9 .43-7 $ 34-II 8 .44.4 80.55 I2 .50.6 66.97 I5. . 53.7 I47-25 I3 .57-7 85.80 4 .57-7 70.87 I . 60.4 92.44 IO. 6o.6 54.66 7..-..... 6o.6 III.55 6 . 6I. I39*30 2 .62.9 67.56 i6 .63.I I76-35 II ...... 64.I 85.39 4 .*...... 65.3 202.99 5 ...... 65 -5 2I9.89 3 .-...... 66.o 92.72

The most striking feature concerningthe geographicaldistribution of juvenile delinquency is the rather even dispersion of cases throughout the entire city. Single streets or individual family groups rather than neighborhoodsseem to form the nuclei for way- ward children. There is, apparently,but slight correlationbetween the segregation of dependency and that of delinquency. Table II gives more exact presentation of the facts recorded in Maps IV and V. It will be observed that Wards 8, 9, and 12, which comprise the central part of the city, and which rank highest in mobility, also rank high in extent of both dependencyand delinquency;while

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Wards 4, 5, 15, and i6 rank high in stability and have relatively little dependency or delinquency. However, the relation between mobility and dependency is much more conspicuousthan the relation between mobility and delinquency. For example, Wards 13 and 14 have almost average stability but rank highest for the whole city in their percentagesof juvenile delinquency. These two wards

TABLE II WARD VARIATIONS IN STABILITY, DEPENDENCY, AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

NUMBERO.F* ~CASESOF CASES OF WARD RVEGISTERNSTABBLIRYt DEPENDENCY4 D ELINQUENCY VOTIERS IY FORi9i8 No. Percentage No. Percentage

9 ...... I757 43.7 82 4.67 27 I .54 8 ...... 2225 44.4 75 3.37 26 I.I7 I2 ...... 2062 50.6 94 4.56 25 I.2I I5 ...... 266I 53.7 23 .86 I2 .45 I3 ...... 3062 57-7 5I I.67 49 i.6o I4 ...... 2344 57-7 58 2.47 39 i.66 I ...... 2950 60.4 58 I.79 45 1.53 IO. 2477 6o.6 82 3.3I 35 I.4I 7 ...... 272I 6o.6 44 I.62 23 85 6 . 2995 6i.9 65 2.I7 32 I.07 2...... 2496 62.9 57 2.28 32 1.28 I 6 ...... 4540 63.I 24 *5I I8 .39 II ...... 317I 64.I 53 I.67 28 .88 4 ...... 2884 65.3 56 I.94 I9 .66 5 ...... 3477 65.5 26 .74 I2 .35 3 .*...... 3635 66.o 45 I.24 34 .94 Total ...... 45,457 ...... 893 ...... 456 j.. Average for city . . 58.6 ...... I.97 ...... I.00

* The number of registered electors furnishes our only clue to the ward populations of the city, as the ward boundarieshave been modified since the igiO census was taken. t The term "stability" implies here, as formerly,the percentageof the I9I 7 electors who re-registered in the same precincts in I9I8. it The cases of dependencyand delinquencyhere recordedare known in the organizations concerned as "oficial cases," that is, they are the more permanent and serious cases with which the organizations have to deal. happen to include industrial areas and have comparatively large colored and immigrantpopulations. While our method of measuring mobility does not indicate whether the movements of families are from one community to anotheror fromone neighborhoodto anotherwithin the community, still a few sample cases seem to show the latter type of movement predominates. For instance, in Ward 9, out of the total 743

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:20:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MAP OF i COLUMBUS, OHIO SHOWING LOCATION OF \HOMES OF DEPENDENTS UNDER OFFICIAL SUPERVISION OF * THE ASSOCIATEDCHAR-ITIES MAY 1, 19 1 TO M AY I, 1919

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This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:20:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MAP OF COLUMBUS, OHIO SHOWING LOCATION OF

e HOMES OF DELINQUENTS ' d AR t UNDER OFFICIAL SUPERVISION OF SR7 THE FRANKLINCOUNTY JUVENILE COURT I, M AY 1918 TO M AY ,1919

/ ARS d iA a, z SCALE OF MILES

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This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:20:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE I67 registered electors for 19I7 whose names, reappearedin the I9I8 list, 141, or an average of I9.I per cent, were listed with different street addresses within the confines of their respective precincts. When it is recalled that the precinct in Columbuscomprises a very small area of but one or two city blocks, it is obvious that quite a considerable amount of mobility is from house to house within the same neighborhood. Another soundingwas taken in Ward I6, an area of higher economic status. All the families in a single block were canvassed. Of the fifty-one families visited eleven had been on the street less than one year, thirty-two less than five years, and the remainder from five to ten years. Forty-one families had moved to the street from some other section of Colum- bus and of this number twenty-eight had moved to the street from the immediately surroundingneighborhood. Again there is a type of mobility that is not indicated by change of residence,but which is almost as significant from the standpoint of neighborhood life. This is measured by the ability of the individual, due to modern methods of communication, to utilize the largersocial environmentafforded by the communityas a whole. The automobile, street car, telephone, and press, together with increased leisure time, have all contributed greatly to the break- down of neighborhoodties. Moreover, the disintegrating effects of these modern means of communicationare not confined to the city alone. They have equal significance with reference to life in the country. To quote Cooley: In our own life the intimacy of the neighborhood has been broken up by the growth of an intricate mesh of wider contacts which leaves us strangers to people who live in the same house. And even in the country the same principle is at work, though less obviously, diminishing our economic and spiritual community with our neighbors., WarrenWilson says: In those states in which the trolley system has been extended into the country, for instance Ohio and Indiana, the process of weakening the country population has been hastened. Sunday becomes for country people a day for visiting the town and in great numbers they gather at the interurban stations. The city and town on Sunday is filled with careless, hurrying groups of visitors, sight-seers and callers, who have no such fixed interest as that

I Social Organization (I9I2), p. 26.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:20:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions i68 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY expressedin church-goingor in substantialsocial processes. For the time being interurban trolley lines have dissipated the life of the country communities. Referring to the use of the telephone and rural free delivery Wilson continues: The old acquaintanceand the intimate social relationsof the country communityhave not been helpedby the telephone: and alongwith the presence of aliensin the community,one quarteror one half or three quartersof the population,the telephonehas had the effect of loweringthe standardsof intimacy and separatingthe householdsin the country from one another. The Rural Free Delivery has put the countrypeople into the generalworld economyand for the time being has loosenedthe bondsof communitylife.! It is an obvious fact that in isolated rural communities or backward city neighborhoods where the telephone has not become an instrument of common usage and where poverty restricts the use of secondary means of transportation, or where linguistic barriers prevent communication with the outside world; in such neighborhoods are to be found the best examples of the old neighborly forms of association. I shall, however, reserve for a later chapter the discussion of the influences of secondary means of communication upon social life in a city neighborhood.

I The Evolution of the Country Community, p. I 28.

[To be continued]

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The Neighborhood: A Study of Local Life in the City of Columbus, Ohio. III. Author(s): R. D. McKenzie Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Jan., 1922), pp. 486-509 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2764310 . Accessed: 20/05/2014 12:42

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This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:42:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE IN THE CITY OF COLUMBUS, OHIO

R. D. McKENZIE Universityof Washington

ABSTRACT Descriptionof neighborhood. The neighborhoodis located in a floodplane near thecenter of the city. It comprisesone of the oldest sections of the city and has been subjectto periodicfloods for years past. It is inhabitedby working-classpeople, chieflyof Americanorigin. Mobilityof neighborhood population. The neighborhood servesas a reservoirfor the city's human wastes. Familiescome and go in constant succession,and thereare also frequent changes of residence from street to streetwithin the neighborhood.There is a smallnucleus, however, of stablesuperior families. The comparativeabsence of secondarymeans of communication,such as telephones and automobiles,makes the less mobile inhabitants-old men, women, and children- completelydependent upon the neighborhood institutions for their associational life. Homes. Most of thehomes are obsoleteboth in structureand fixtures;scarcely io per centhave electriclights: about half of themare withoutbaths or indoortoilets. Overcrowdingis not prevalentexcept in alleyhouses. Familylife. The neighborhoodis a collectivityof veryunlike family groups. Superiorwholesome families are frequentlyfound living next door to disorderlyworthless people. Undersuch circum- stancescomplete avoidance is practiced. The superiorfamilies usually represent earlysettlers who, on accountof property ties, cannot leave their undesirable surroundings. Economiccondition. This districtrepresents the lowesteconomic level in thecity. Homeownership is uncommon,and rentsaverage less thanfifteen dollars per month. Howeverthere are markeddifferences in the comparativeeconomic statusof adjoiningfamilies. Family groups in thedepth of povertyare frequently foundliving side by side withfamilies having comfortable incomes. Leisure-time activities.Most of the homes are ill-equipped with facilities for the fruitful utilization of leisuretime. Readingmaterials are scantor wanting;musical instruments are foundonly in a smallpercentage of thehomes. Outdoorleisure-time activities. The moviesare the mostpopular form of commercializedrecreation for mothers and children.The eldermales find their chief enjoyment in the neighborhoodsaloons, whilethe youth, for the most part, patronize the uptown poolrooms and dancehalls.

PART II. AN ANALYSIS OF A DISINTEGRATED CITY NEIGHBORHOOD V. DESCRIPTION OF NEIGHBORHOOD The followingsurvey was undertakenupon the suggestionof theBrotherhood of theFirst Congregational Church of Columbus. For a numberof years the churchhas been supportinga social settlementhouse, located on Broad Street,in the heart of the regionwest of the river. Witha view to extendingits activities on a more scientificand efficientscale, the Brotherhoodvoted in 486

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:42:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE 487 the springof I9I9 thata surveyof the neighborhoodsurrounding the socialsettlement be made and a programof actionoutlined in conformitywith the findings. The writerwas selectedto engineer the survey. The fieldwork was doneby advancedstudents in his classesin sociologyat thestate university. The actual fieldwork of the surveyfalls into threedivisions: first,a house-to-housecanvass of one thousandhouseholds located in the neighborhoodjust indicated. An attemptwas made to

CITY OF COLUMBUS, OHIO MAP OF - NEIGHBORHOOD SURVEYED F 500 '000 15W ~ ~ 00F'

:g~~~~~~~~~~~~C: MAPV

oloons B ~~~T~~ ..t.... ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ U SeOIBoBS.lbod

reach everyhome in this district,but frequentlythe house was emptywhen the investigatorcalled, and althoughsecond visits weremade in mostcases, still many households were thus unavoid- ably omitted. In the secondplace a studywas made of all the neighborhoodinstitutions-churches, schools, industries, and ofall theformls of commercializedrecreation. And lastly,special inter- viewswere held withabout twentyof the oldestresidents of the districtin orderto obtain data concerningthe history,leading changes,and dominantforces in theneighborhood. The neighborhoodthat we are about to describeis locatedin the "flatsc lyingimmediately west of thecentral part of the city. As indicated on Map VI, the regionin questionis bounded on

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threesides by a loop of the Scioto River. It comprisesa low floodplane stretchingwest in triangularshape forabout three milesto the Hilltopdistrict. The easternend of the district,or apex of thetriangle, is less thana quarterof a milein width,while the westernbase is about twomiles wide. This districthas been subject to periodicfloods, occurring, according to reportsof the oldestinhabitants, about every fifteen years. The mostserious of thesefloods, in the memoryof the oldestresidents, took place in the springof I913 whenthe entireeastern half of the districtwas fora fewdays coveredby waterfrom six to tenfeet in depth. This neighborhoodcomprises one of the oldestsections of the cityof Columbus. The centralpart of it was originallyknown as the village of Franklinton;the old countycourt buildingwas locatedat the cornerof Sanduskyand Broad streets,the present site of the FranklintonSchool. SullivantAvenue, the southern boundaryline of the neighborhood, is named after Lucas Sullivant, the originalowner of the "bottoms" lyingwest of the river. In the earlydays thisdistrict was so swampyand so undesirablefor habitationthat Mr. Sullivantgave lots to settlersto inducethem to come and reside there. Hence Gift Streetgot the name it stillretains. The neighborhoodwas originallyinhabited by "plain working people." Broad Street was the main thoroughfareand, in the opinionof manyof the old timers,did a muchmore flourishing businesstwenty years ago than it does at present. The eastern sectionof the neighborhood,lying immediately west of the river, was,in theearly days, known as "Middletown"and was considered by thepeople living farther west as a "rough" section. The local differentiationhas, however,faded away; onlya fewof the old settlersseem to be familiarwith the implicationof theearly local distinction. Thereis generalconsensus of opinionamong the oldersettlers thatthe neighborhood made a rapiddecline immediately following the floodof I9I3. At that time many of the moreprosperous familiesmoved to otherparts of the city,especially to the new additionopened up just thenon the Hilltop. Real estateprices declinedrapidly, dropping to one-thirdor one-halftheir previous

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values. This in turnbrought about an influxof coloredand poor whitefamilies, with the consequentfurther deterioration of the neighborhood.

The area surveyedincludes eleven precincts, which in I9I8 had a totalregistered electorate of i,824.' The city'sregistered elec- toratefor that year was 45,854, or approximatelyone-sixth of the estimatedpopulation of the city as a whole. Figuringon this basis the districtcovered by our surveyhas a total populationof approximatelyii,ooo. The one-thousandhouseholds visited had a totalpopulation of 4,176, whichis considerablyover one-thirdof the estimatedpopulation of the entireneighborhood. Table III givesthe distributionof thepopulation according to age and sex. TABLE III

AGE AND SEX DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD IN COMPARISON wITH THAT OF CITY AS A WHOLE

PERCENTAGEIN EACH GROUP AGE MALE FEMALE TOTAL _ Neighbor- City* hood

Under5 ...... 2I5 242 457 10. 9 7.9 5- 9 ...... 2I6 229 445 io. 6 7.4 10-I4 ...... 2 I6 198 414 9.9 7.4 I5-I9 ...... I52 I97 349 8.4 9. I 20-24 ...... I58 I82 340 8.I II .I 25-34 ...... 38 343 66i I5.9 20.6 35-44 ...... 253 30I 554 I3.3 I5.5 45 and over...... 467 4I8 885 2I.2 20.8 Unknown.40 3I 7I I.7 0.2

Total...... 2035 214I 4I76 IOO IOO

* U.S. Census, IgIo. A fewinteresting facts are revealedby thistable. For instance the ratio of small childrenfor the neighborhoodis considerably higher,and theratio of adults,in themost productive years of life, considerablylower than for the cityas a whole. In thisarea the percentageof childrenunder fifteen years of age is 3I.4 as against 22.7 forthe city as givenin the I9IO Census. On theother hand, thepercentage of adults in theage groupI5-45 is only45.7 forthe X ThirteenthCensus of United States, III (I9IO), 399.

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neighborhoodin contrastto 56.3for the city. Againthe proportion of thesexes in theneighborhood is quite differentfrom that given in thei9io Censusfor the city as a whole. In thedistrict surveyed thereare but 95 malesto everyioo femalesas againstIOI.5 males to everyioo femalesin Columbus,and I04.4 males to everyioo femalesfor the state of Ohio.,

TABLE IV

PLACE OF BIRTH OF WHITE ADULTS i8 YEARS AND OVER

OTHERS

PLACE OF BIRTH HUSBAND WIFE TOTAL Male Female

Columbus...... I79 I94 I35 I36 644 Elsewherein Ohio...... 4i8 462 I8 5 I55 I,220 Elsewherein U.S ...... I47 I57 50 5I 405 Germany...... 2I I 4 I 45 Italy ...... I7 I5 I 2 35 Ireland ...... II I3 2 ...... 26 Great Britain...... II 7 I 4 23 Austria...... 7 7 4 I I9 Switzerland...... 4 3 ...... I 8 Roumania ...... 2 ...... 2 Canada ...... I I 2 India ...... I ...... Australia...... I ...... I France 2...... I ...... I .. ..I 2 Unknown..... 34 3I 36 25 I26

Total .854 909 420 376 2,559

It is quite evidentthat this is predominantlyan American sectionof the city; 26.5per centof theadults whose place ofbirth is knownwere born in Columbus,76.6 in Ohio,and only6.7 per cent were born in countriesother than the United States. Of thoseborn outside of theUnited States only III, or 4.5 percent of thetotal population, come from non-English-speaking countries and theserepresent six differentnationalities. Withthe exception of a small Italian neighborhoodlying north of the subwayon Rogers Avenue,there is no nucleusof foreign born in theentire district. ' Thesefigures show that the population of the neighborhood contains more than a normaldistribution of the economicallyweaker age and sex groups. Economic forcestend to distributea city'spopulation according to the relativestrength of familiesin thecompetitive process.

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Ofour one thousandfamilies forty-three were colored. If these weresegregated in a singlesection of the district the number would be ofminor significance as it comprisessuch a smallpercentage of the totalpopulation. But on the contrarythese colored families arescattered over a largepart ofthe neighborhood. Table V pre- sentsa listof the streets on whichthey dwell.

TABLE V LOCATION OF COLORED FAMILIES

Street Numberof Families Street Numberof Families

Chapel...... 6 Mill...... I Capital ...... I Rich...... I Cherry...... 2 State...... I Grubb...... 3 Scott...... 2 Jones...... 3 Sandusky...... 4 Lucas ...... 2 Starling...... 5 McDowell ...... 8 Town...... I McKinley.2 W. Broad...... I

A glanceat themap ofthe neighborhood (p. 487) will showthat coloredpeople are to be foundon almostevery street from the river as farwest as SanduskyStreet, and, north of Broad Street,as far westas thesurvey extended. Most of the coloredfamilies have made theirway into this districtsince the floodof I9I3. Of the forty-threehouseholds reporting,only two have been in the neighborhoodmore than six years; thirty-two,or 74.4 per cent,have been in the neighborhood less thanthree years; and nineteen,or 44.2 per cent,have beenin theneighborhood less thanone year. Most ofthese colored people are recentarrivals from the south, only nine of the heads ofhouse- holdswere born in Ohio,eight came from Virginia, six from Georgia, fourfrom Kentucky, three from Alabama, and the remainingthir- teen fromvarious other states throughoutthe Union.' I My reasonfor discussing the colored family in detailis to emphasizeits significance fromthe standpointof neighborhooddisintegration and decline. There is probablyno morevalid criterionof the disappearanceof neighborhoodsentiment in anylocality inhabited by Americanpeople than to findcolored families dispersed hereand thereamong the whitefamilies. Where any degreeof neighborhoodcon- sciousnessexists social pressure invariably keeps the coloredfamily out; but in the absenceof local sentiment, the advent of the negro drives the more enterprising white folkto lookfor new quarters.

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VI. MOBILITY OF NEIGHBORHOOD" We have alreadydiscussed the questionof mobilitywith referenceto its moregeneral aspects from the standpointof the cityas a whole. Accordingto our generaltest of mobility,namely the percentageof the I9I7 electorswho failedto re-registerin their TABLE VI HomEOWNERSHIP BY STREETS

Street Owner Renter PercentageOwnersof

Easternsection ...... I02 367 2I.8 Belle...... 3 I9 I3.6 Starling...... 2 I5 II.7 McDowell...... I2 37 24.4 May...... 3 3I 8.8 Mill ...... 3 I7 I5.0 Gift...... 6 35 I5.3 Broad ...... 7 2I 25.0 Capital...... 0 II 00.0 State...... 32 84 27.5 Chapel ...... I2 32 27.2 Town...... I5 45 25.0 Walnut...... 7 22 24.0

Westernsection ...... 138 226 38.o Skidmore...... 20 30 40.0 Grubb...... II 28 28.2 Sandusky...... I8 39 3I.5 Davis ...... 7 I3 35.0 Souder...... 8 9 47.0 Richard...... I0 28 26.3 Martin...... I4 I2 53.8 Hawkes..... 13 I2 52.0 Avondale...... 8 9 49.0 Rich ...... 15 35 30.0 Sullivant...... 1...... I4 II 56.o

Total...... 240 593 28.8 respectiveprecincts in I9I8, the easternend of the neighborhood underconsideration comprises one of the mostmobile sections of the city. The two precinctswhich occupy the territorybetween the railroadtracks and the riverlost almosttwo-thirds of their registeredvoters during the shortperiod of one year. However, the neighborhoodincreases in stabilitythe fartherwest one goes. IThe readeris referredto Map III (Amer.Jour. of Sociol., XXVII [September, I921], I63) fora generalcomparison of themobility of thisneighborhood with that ofother sections of the city.

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The precinctslying west of the railroad tracks, with one exception, have a re-registrationof electorsof over 50 per cent. This sec- tionaldifference in mobilityis furtheremphasized by thedifference in the percentageof homeownership for the two divisionsof the neighborhood.For instance only 2I.8 per cent of the homes betweenSkidmore Street and the riverare ownedby theirpresent occupants,as against 38.I per cent for the regionlying imme- diatelywest of SkidmoreStreet. Table VI indicatesthe varying percentagesof home ownership,by streets,for the two divisions ofthe neighborhood. With respect to change of residence,Table VII gives the lengthof time each familyhas lived in its presenthome, in the TABLE VII COMPARATIVE MOBILITY OF Two CITY NEIGHBORHOODS

COLMBUS SEATTLE*

YEARS House Neighborhood City HOuSE Neighborhood

Per- Per- Per- Per- Per. No.N. centage No. centage No. centage No. centage No. centage

0- I ..... 237 23.7 I46 I4.6 5i 5.I 897 35.9 477 23.4 I- 2 ..... I58 I5.8 99 9.9 33 3.3 447 I7.9 3II I5.3 2- 3 ..... io6 io.6 88 8.8 47 4.7 269 io.8 228 II.4 3- 4 ..... I20 IO.2 89 8.9 4I 4.I I55 6.2 I35 6.6 4- 5----- 46 4.6 40 4.0 25 2.5 86 3.4 92 4-5 5- 6..... 44 4.4 46 4.6 30 3.0 92 3.7 IOI 4.9 6- 7..... 53 5-3 52 5.2 3I 3.I 75 3.I 79 3-9 7- 8..... I5 I.5 28 2.8 23 2.3 78 3.I 94 4.6 8- 9..... i6 i.6 28 2.8 22 2.2 73 2.9' 76 3.7 9-IO..... I7 I.7 I7. I.7 I4 I.4 45 I.8 67 3-4 IO-I5 * 84 8.4 I04 IO.4 io6 io.6 200 8.O 235 II.5 15-20 37 3-7 82 8.2 II5 II.5 53 2. I 88 4.3 2o andover 85 8.5 i8i I8. I 462 46.2 28 I.I 52 2.5

Totals... i,o000 100 I,000 100 ,000 I00 2,498 I00 2,035 100

* The neighborhoodstudied comprises about a squaremile lying immediately adjacent to thecampus of'theUniversity of Washington.It is a neighborhoodof homeowners of the middleeconomic classes. Fraternitiesand lodginghouses were not includedin thissurvey. The data werecollected by the local Y.M.C.A. as partof the Interchurch World Survey in thewinter of 1920. neighborhood,and in the city,and comparesthe resultwith that of a similarstudy made of a neighborhoodin a highereconomic area in the cityof Seattle, Washington. It is apparentthat the mobility of both of these neighborhoods is veryhigh indeed. However,our broken-downneighborhood in

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Columbusis even less mobilethan the highereconomic neighborhood of Seattle. In the former60.3 per cent of the familieswere occupantsof their homes for less thanfour years, and 42.2 per cent residentsof the neighborhoodless than fouryears, while in the latterneighborhood 70.8 per cent of the familieshave lived less thanfour years in theirpresent homes and 56.5 per centless than fouryears in theneighborhood. Althoughthe Columbusneighborhood has a large fringeof mobilefamilies, still it also has a considerablestable nucleus. Over I8 percent of the one thousandfamilies visited have beenresidents ofthe neighborhood for twenty years or more, and ofthese families, 8.5 per cent have lived in theirpresent homes throughoutthis period. Thisstable group forms the backbone of the neighborhood. Practicallyall ofthese householders are home-owners,and manyof themare maroonedsuperior families who are heldin the neighborhoodon accountof property ties. The data forSeattle are not comparable in thisrespect, owing to the fact that the districtsurveyed is relativelynew. Most of the presenthomes have been erected during the past fifteen years. The highmobility, however, during the last five years is notentirely due to the erectionof new dwellings,inasmuch as theolder settled sectionsof the districtshow almost as higha mobilityas the newer streets. Unfortunatelywe have no informationconcerning the length of time the Seattle familieshave been residentsof the city. It is interestingto note,however, that considerablyover half, 57.7 per cent,of the male heads of households in ourColumbus neighborhood have been residentsof the city forfifteen years or more. It is quite evident,therefore, that the changesof residenceamong this economicclass of the Columbuspopulation are intra-community orintra-neighborhood rather than from one communityto another.' Changeof familyresidence, however, does not tell the whole storyconcerning the mobilityof the populationof our Columbus

I Elsa G. Herzfeldfound from a study of a group of tenement-housefamilies in New York "that the average length of residenceis about a year and a half," and that many of the moves are from"house to house in the same block."-Family Mono- graphs(I905), p. 48.

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neighborhood.It is also necessaryto takeinto account the number of detachedor floatingpersons who live as boardersor lodgersin the neighborhood.Our house-to-housecanvass showsthat there are 4I7 suchpersons, 236 malesand i8i females,scattered among 267 of the i,ooo homes visited. This floating element is to be foundfor the mostpart in the easternend of the districtwhere theleading factories are located. StarlingStreet especially, due to its proximityto the railroadand the GodmanShoe Factory,has becomea centerfor boarding and lodginghouses. The relativelyhigh physical mobility of the populationof this neighborhoodis somewhatcounteracted by the lack of adequate means for communication.As was indicatedelsewhere in this studymobility depends upon many factorsother than the mere changeof residence.' Time and meansfor getting about are also importantconsiderations. Thus people livingin the lower economicareas may have a highdegree of mobility, so faras changeof residenceis concerned,and stillbe verymuch more dependent upon theirneighborhood institutions than are the home-ownersof the morestable and economicallysuperior residential districts. The telephone,the automobile,and the business contacts give to thelatter an independenceof neighborhood organizations which the formerdo not possess. For this reason we have attemptedto ascertainthe facilitiesat the disposal of the people withinthis neighborhoodfor secondary means of communication. Only 77 or 7.7 per centof the i,ooo householdersinterviewed reportedthe ownershipof an automobile.2And practicallyall of these machinesare owned by familiesliving on or west of SanduskyStreet. In regardto thepossession of telephones, 289 or 29.8 per centof the householdshad thismeans of communication. This numberof telephonesmay seem ratherhigh, considering the low economicstatus of the neighborhood,but, as will be shown

I Cf. Amer.Jour. of Sociol., XXVII (September,I92I), i67. 2 The total numberof personsin the i,ooo householdswas 4,I76; this leaves one machine for every 56.8 inhabitants. Accordingto the Goodrich Rubber Company report,there was, in I9I9, one motor-vehiclefor every Io.4 inhabitantsin the state of Ohio; and one for every I4.2 inhabitantsin the United States. Cf. J. Phelan, Readingsin Rural Sociology(I920), p. 256.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:42:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 496 THE AMERICAN JOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY later,the neighborhoodis not a homogeneouseconomic unit. On the contraryit representsa mixtureof familieswith respectable incomesliving side by side with familieswho are in the utmost poverty. If is difficultto measurethe degree of dependence of this population upon its neighborhoodinstitutions. The proximityof the regionto the heart of the city makes the uptowninstitutions easily accessibleto those with the means and desireto attend. That the differentage and sex groupsvary considerablyin the degree to which they patronize the uptown institutionsand places of amusementis shownby the factsbrought to lightin our studyof the neighborhoodchurches and commercializedforms of recreation. Smallchildren, mothers, and theolder men are almost entirelydependent upon the neighborhoodfor theirsocial and recreationallife. VII. ECONOMIC STATUS AND OCCUPATIONAL LIFE The neighborhoodsurveyed falls in Wards9 and io; thesetwo wards,it willbe recalled,comprise the lowest economic area in the city. Ward9, whichincludes the eastern end of the neighborhood, representsthe lowesteconomic rating of all the wardsin the city, having an average per-electorhousehold-furniture appraisal, in I9I7, of only $34.II. Ward io, in whichthe major part of the neighborhoodis located, has the second lowest ratingwith an averagehousehold furniture listing of $54.66. Anotherindex to the comparativeeconomic status of different sectionsof a cityis theaverage monthly rentals paid per dwelling. Unfortunatelywe have no data at hand to enableus to compare rentalsof this neighborhood with those of other regions in thecity. However,the facts revealed in Table VIII willconvince the reader of the verylow rentallevel of the territory surveyed. Ofthe 656 rentedhomes concerning which we have information bothas to rentand numberof rooms,only 9, or I.4 per cent,rent formore than $20 per month,while 524, or 79.9 per cent,rent for $I5 orless. The averagemonthly rent per dwelling is $I3.90 while theaverage number of rooms is five. Table IX givesa classificationof the occupationsof the male headsof households.

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The most strikingfeature brought to lightby this somewhat detailedenumeration of employmentsis theindustrial character of theneighborhood. This is a regionwhere the soft collar and duck overallspredominate. Professional and businessmen formbut a verysmall percentage of the heads of households. In thisrespect the neighborhooddiffers widely from the higher economic areas of the city. This fact is demonstratedby the lists (Table X, p. 499) ofoccupations of heads of households taken in orderfrom two streets in othersections of thecity. TABLE VIII RENTS PER MONTH IN RELATION TO SIZE or DWELLING*

No. of HouseholdsOccupying Each SpecifiedNumber of Rooms Rentsper month I 2 3 4 5 Total IC 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 zo

Under$5.. . I 3 2 I...... 7 2 2 .. $ 5-$ 6 ...... 5 ...... 9 $ 6-$ 7 2 ...I4 .. 6 I I ... I . ....25 $ 7-$ 8 ...... I4 24 6 ...... 44 $ 8-$ 9- . ...7.. I9 I0. 4 I...... 4I $ 9-$Io ...... 9 64 44 I4 ...... I3I $IO-$II ...... I 20 20 5 ...... 46 $II-$I2 ...... 2I 53 24 2 ...... I00 $I 2-$I3...... II i8 7 ..... I ...... 37 $I3-$I4 ...... 2 3 I0 I5 2 ...... 32 $I4-$I5 ...... 2 2I 25 2 I I ..... 52 $I5-$ ...... 5 5 27 2 I I ..... 4I $I6-$I7 ...... 2 5 8 I I ...... I7 $I7-$I8 . I 8 2 I 3 2 . 35 $I8-$i0 ...... I 4 I ..... 37 $I9-$20...... I 14 5 2 I 23 $2o andover ...... 4 I 2 I I 9

Total... I 7 54 i8I 203 I73 19 II 6 I 656

* It mustbe keptin mind,however, that thesefigures represent conditions in May, i9Ig, beforethe generalrise of rentsin Columbus. Althoughthe west side neighborhoodis primarilya working- man'sdistrict, still it by no meansrepresents a uniformstandard of living. Many of theheads of households,such as skilledlaborers, railroadconductors, etc., belongto the higherincome groups and could easilyafford to live in one of the superioreconomic areas of the city. Proximityto workdoubtless accounts for their residence here.' But on theother hand, the large number of different forms xFifty-two per centof the adultmale workersin our one thousandhouseholds walkto and fromtheir work.

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TABLE IX OCCUPATIONSor MALE HEADs or HOUSEHOLDS

Workingfor Self No. WorkingRailroadsfor Others- No.

Barber...... 2 Baggage man 3 Blacksmith...... 3 Blacksmith...... 3 Baker...... I Brakeman . . II Butcher...... 5 Boilermaker. .. 5 Carpenter...... 2 Car inspector 3 Contractor...... 5 Clerk... 7 Grocer...... 4 Conductor. I6 Junkman...... I Engineer . . I I Lawyer...... I Expressman...... I Paper hanger ...... 4 Fireman. 3 Painter...... 5 Foreman . . 4 Peddler...... 2 Freightman . . 2 Plasterer...... 2 Hostler...... 2 Repair man ... . I Laborer . .33 Real estate...... 3 Lineman . . 2 Saloon keeper...... 4 Machinist. I4 Small business...... 8 Night watchman 2 Shoemaker Rir...... I Railroader.. .. I7 Taxi driver...... I Repair man . . 2 Tailor ...... I Switchman...... 2 Tinsmith...... 2 Transferman . I Train caller .. I

Total ...... 58 Total. I45

Workingfor Others- No. Workingfor Others- No. Workingfor Others- No. General - N. General N. General

Actor ...... I Dyer...... I Painter...... 9 Bartender...... 8 Electrician...... 7 Paper hanger 3 Barber...... 4 Engineer...... 30 Penitentiaryguard 3 Boiler maker .... 3 Fireman...... II Plumber. 8 Blacksmith...... 3 Foreman.2...... 27 Policeman. 9 Buffer...... 5 Furnace man..... 5 Printer. I Butcher .. . 6 Hotel clerk.... . 4 Shippingclerk 7 Bookbinder.... . 6 Insur. salesman . 3 Soldier. 4 Bookkeeper...... I Inspector...... 4 Salesman...... I4 Bank teller...... I Ice man...... I2 Shoemaker.25 Carpenter...... 2I Janitor...... 4 St.-carmotorman. II Clerk...... 35 Laborer...... I4 Solderer...... 3 Cabinet-maker... 2 Lineman . . 4 Steel worker 2I Candy maker..... 2 Laundry man .... 2 Tinsmith. I Cook...... 2 Lamp maker..... I Tailor. 2 Collector...... 4 Meter reader..... 4 Taxi driver. I Cooper...... 3 Machinist...... 3I Truck driver 30 Chauffeur...... 5 Molder...... 1 I 2 Undertaker. I Chemist...... 2 Marble worker... I Window trimmer. I Decorator...... 2 Mail carrier...... 4 Retired. IO Detective...... I Mason ...... 5 Unknown...... 48 Doctor...... 2 Meat packer .... 6 Druggist .. I Night watchman.. 7 Total .63I

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:42:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE 499 ofemployment represented here indicate that thisneighborhood is not a collectivityof workersgrouped around some dominant industrysuch as we findin theneighborhood of the South Columbus Steel Worksor in the stockyarddistrict of Chicago. Of the variousindustries represented in the neighborhoodthe railroadsemploy the largestnumber of the heads of households.

TABLE X

STREET A, WARD I5 STREET B, WARD i6

Occupation No. Occupation No.

Building contractor 2 Attorney...... 3 Business man IO Automobiledealer ...... 3 Engineer.3 Building contractor...... I Lawyer . . I Clerk...... 4 Manufacturer I Conductor,steam R.R..... 3 Newspaper editor I Electrical engineer...... I Night chiefof police I Manufacturer...... 2 Physician.2 Real estate dealer ...... I Restaurantproprietor I Retired...... I Travelingsalesman 7 SuperintendentR.R ...... I Universityprofessor 4 Travelingsalesman ...... 4 Universityprofessor ..... I Wholesale merchant. 4

TABLE XI

No. OF EMPLOYEES PERCENTAGE NA OF INDUSTRY RESIDENT IN NEIGEBOR- Total Male Female HOOD

Godman Shoe Co. 550 230 220 25.0 Crystal Ice Co . I35 I30 5 go. 0 Doddington Lumber Co IOI IOO I 25.0

Our surveyshows that I45 of the leadingmale breadwinnersare engagedin someform or otherof railroad employment. The God- man Shoe Factorycomes second employing 3o, and the CrystalIce Companynext, furnishing work to onlyI2 heads of households. A surveyof the main industriesof the neighborhood,all of whichare locatedin the northeasternend betweenthe riverand McDowell Street,gives the informationpresented in Table XI, with respectto the numberof employeesand the percentageof themresiding within the neighborhood.

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In regardto unemploymentwe succeededin obtaininginfor- mationconcerning 865 male heads of households. Of thisnumber 33I, or 4I.I per cent,reported being off work for a periodof seven days or more duringthe firstthree months of the presentyear (I9I9); and Iio, or I3.6 per cent,reported being idle in thissame periodthirty days or more. Of the causes givenfor unemploy- ment26.7 per centreported sickness, 35.I per cent reportedlack of work,and the remainingnumber, various other causes such as visiting,etc. Our house-to-housecanvass shows that II3 motherswork outside the homefor remuneration. These are distributedamong 25 differenttypes of employment,day work and the shoe factory claimingthe largest percentages.

LAN~~~~~~~~~~~~

' - Street CorLlnes sC^Lt~MA OF rE

MAP VII

The 87 officialrelief cases, the distributionof whichis marked on our neighborhoodmap, do not give an accurateconception of the extentof povertywithin the district. They merelyindicate the numberof families within the neighborhoodwho wereactually obtainingrelief from official sources at thetime of our investigation. Had we takenthe cases fora three-yearperiod instead of one,the

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spotson themap wouldhave giventhe appearanceof almost solid black. Of coursebut a smallpercentage of the familiesbelow the povertyline actually come to theattention of the reliefagencies of thecity. My personalimpression is, fromreading over the notes on theone thousandschedules taken, that a largepercentage of the familiesare in economicdistress.

VIII. THE HOME AND DOMESTIC LIFE Over 70 per cent of the houses of this districtare singleor duplexdwellings. Outside of Broad and State streetsthere are relativelyfew apartmenthouses. The buildings,,in general,are TABLE XII ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING OF DWELLINGS

No. of Households Means ofArtificial Lighting Reporting Percentage Gas ...... 794 79.4 Electricity...... 92 9.2 Oil lamps...... 99 9.9 Unknown ...... I 5 I.5

Total ...... I0000 IOO

TABLE XIII HOUSEHOLD CONVENIENCES

Conveniences No. of Homes Percentage

Bath...... 407 40.7 Ice box ...... 7I6 7I. 6 Toilet in house ...... 435 43.5 placed close up to the streetsleaving no roomin frontfor lawns or grass. The blocksare laid out in sucha waythat there are few lanes or alleys,and most of the buildingson Broad Streethave theirentrances facing the side streets. The severalalleys of the neighborhood,Capital, Chapel, etc., are dignifiedby theappellation "streets" and are used as such, havingdwellings on both sides, althoughnot more than thirty feet wide. As one mightexpect, considering the low rentalscharged, the housesof this district are, for the most part, obsolete. Tables XII and XIII give the resultsof our house-to-housecanvass in this regard.

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In regardto lightingit is interestingto note that thereare more householdsusing coal-oillamps than thereare using electricity. Gas, however,is the predominantmethod of lighting; almost8o per centof the dwellings use no othermeans of artificial illumination.Further, it will be observedthat over 50 per cent of the homesare withoutbaths or insidetoilets. The absenceof theice box' in 29 percent of the homes is also a pointof significance forthe public health authorities. Table XIV showsthe numberof roomsper dwellingin relation to thenumber of occupants. TABLE XIV ROOMS PER DWELLING IN RELATION TO SIZE oF HOUSEHoLD

No. UsingSpecified Number of Rooms in Household Total I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 _ to I I Unknown

. 2 3 2 3 2 I I I .. I .. 5 21 2...... 3 27 53 ....63 38 7 7 3 I .... I0 212 3* **...... I II 42 70 44 i8 I0 ...... I 6 203 4. *. -...... 7 39 ..42 ...52 I0 I3 5 I I I I7I 5...... 9 34 46 47 9 8 2 2 .... I I58 6...... 2 3 I6 3I ....27 4 6 3 . 3 ...... 95 7...... I i6 24 30 8 7 3 ...... 89 8 . I2 3 5 II 3 2 I I .28 9...... 2 5 3...... I ...... II IO.....0... .. I.. 2 2. I.. I...... 5 II ...... 2...... 2 12 ..I...... 3 ...... I .... 5

Total.. 2 9 62 209 290 259 6o 55 I7 II 3 23 I,000

Unlikemost industrial regions in largecities this neighborhood shows,at the date of survey,very little overcrowding in housing conditions. Ofthe households concerning which we have complete information,the averagenumber of personsper roomis I.3. A significantfact broughtout in the table is the large numberof householdsof threeor less membersoccupying dwellings of five roomsor more. Thereare 268of these. But on theother hand 52 families,comprising 397 persons,are livingin dwellingshaving less thantwo rooms for every three persons, which, according to housing standards,implies overcrowdedconditions. And, as mightbe I It is an interestingobservation that the question in theschedule concerning the presenceor absence of the ice boxwas theonly one which consistently gave offense.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:42:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE 503 surmised,these dwellings are, forthe most part, located along the alleysin theeastern section of the neighborhood. Of the one thousandfamilies visited 295 reportedowning their ownhomes. In otherwords about 29 per centof the homes of the entiredistrict are occupiedby theirpresent owners. Unfortu- natelywe do not possess the factsin regardto home-ownership for the city as a whole, consequentlywe cannot comparethis neighborhoodwith other sections of the city. The percentageof home-ownershipfound here, however, is considerablyhigher than thatof many of thebig citiesof the countrywhere the apartment house abounds. For instancein Baltimorethe ratio of home- ownershipis 27.9 per cent,in Chicago 25.I per cent,in Boston, I8.9, inNew York I2.I, and in thecrowded boroughs of Manhattan and theBronx only 5.9 per cent.'

Althoughkinship does not any longerplay the r6le that it oncedid in the organizationof local life,nevertheless, it is stilla factorin neighborhoodselection within the city. Of the i,ooo householdsstudied, 646 reportedhaving one or more related familiesresiding within the cityof Columbus,and 476 households claimedkinship to one or morefamilies living within the confines of the immediateneighborhood. These facts indicatethat the bond of kinshipcontinues to influencethe territorialgroupings of peoplewithin the city. This is especiallytrue with respect to the lower economicareas. Mutual aid has almost ceased to be a factorin the fragmentaryand casual relationsbetween neighbors in the cityenvironment. What directco-operation remains, outside of the purposiveorganizations such as the trade unionsand fraternalsocieties, is confinedto the membersof the familyor kinshipgroup.2 This factmay partially explain the relatively high I Munro,Government ofAmerican Cities, p. 48. 2 I am awarethat this statement does not correspond with the usual findings of socialworkers concerning the extentof mutualaid amongtenement families. For instanceDr. Devineis quotedas saying"It is a questionwhether the unmeasured but certainlylarge amount of neighborlyassistance given in thetenement houses of the city,precisely as in a New Englandvillage or in a frontiersettlement, does not rank firstof all amongthe means for the alleviation of the distressed."-Rev. John A. Ryan, CommencementAddress to a graduatingclass in New York Schoolof SocialWork, I920. For similarfindings compare Elsa G. Herzfeld,op. cit.,pp. 33-34.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:42:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 504 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY percentageof kinshipfound in this comparativelylow economic regionof the city. A verysmall percentage of the heads ofhouse- holdsbelong to thetrade unions or voluntarysocieties of any sort, consequentlythere is greaterneed forreliance upon relativesin timesof need. The familygroup is now takenby welfareorganizations as the unitfor case-work. It is thereforeimportant to knowthe salient factsabout the family life of any region where social reconstruction is contemplated. TABLE XV AGE DISTRIBUTION OF MALE HEADS OF HOUSEHOLDS

PERCENTAGEOF HEADS oF HOUSEHOLDS IN EACH AGE GROUP AGE IN YEARS Neighborhood Columbus

Under25 years...... 3 .9 6.2 25-44 ...... 50.8 57. 2 45 andover.45.3 36.6

As was indicatedby Table III (p. 489 of this article),and is furtherbrought out here,the age distributionof the population withinthe neighborhood differs considerably from that of the city as a whole. The neighborhoodhas a distinctlylower percentage of peoplein the primeof life,and a considerablyhigher ratio of chil- drenand peopleover forty-five years of age. This conditionis par- tiallyexplained by the fact that a numberof young men were still in militaryservice when the surveywas made. It mayalso be true, however,that during the more productive years of life many people are able to affordresidence in themore desirable sections of the city, but,as theirproductive capacity declines with age, theyare forced to retireto thelower rental areas. Childrenper family.-Table XVI indicates the numberof childrenper familyunder eighteen years of age residingat home at thetime the survey was made.

Amongour families, however, there was littleevidence to showthat mutual aid extendedbeyond the kinshipgroup. Therewere of courseoccasional spots in the districtwhere neighbors exchanged services but suchcases seemed to be exceptional.

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Thistable shows that about 25 percent of the families reporting are withoutchildren living at home; that the averagenumber of childrenper familyis onlyI.9, whichof course is verylow. The average is broughtdown, however, by the high percentageof householdshaving no childrenat all. On the otherhand there are io6 householdswhere there are fiveor morechildren living at home. These large familiesare found,as a rule,in the broken- downstreets and alleys of the neighborhood.

TABLE XVI

CHILDREN PER HOUSEHOLD, i8 YEARS AND UNDER

HOUSEHOLDS REPORTINGEACH SPECIFIED NUMBERo0 CHMw1gN CHILDREN PER HOUSEHOLD No. Percentage

None ...... 249 24.9 I...... 2I9 2I.9 2...... I92 I9.2 3...... I38 I3.8 4...... 9 6 9.6 5. 76 7.6 6...... I3 I.3 7...... 8 .8 8...... 4 .4 9...... 2 .2 IO ...... 3 .3 Total ...... I,000 IOO

The brokenfamily.-By the "broken family"we mean family groupswhere either or bothparents, for some reasonor other,are absent fromhome. Unfortunately,owing to the delicatenature of familyproblems, it was impossibleto ascertainwhether the parent'sabsence was due to death, divorce,desertion, or some other cause. Temporaryabsence, however,is not recordedin Table XVII. It will be observedfrom this table that I5.6 per cent of the householdsmay, according to ourdefinition, be classifiedas broken families. Twenty-sixhouseholds are listedas non-familygroups; thesecomprise groups of non-relatives or at least distantrelatives, livingtogether in householdassociation.

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The unwholesomefamily.-As we have alreadyindicated,' every normalindividual possesses four general types of desires,namely, thedesire for safety or security,the desire for recognition or social status,the desire for new experiences or stimulations,and thedesire formastery or power. If any one of thesegeneral desires is not gettingadequate expression in thesocial environment the individual or groupconcerned tends to showsigns of restlessnessand discon- tentment,which may finallyend in disorderlinessor some other formof emotionaldisturbance. Wheneverwe findsuch dissatisfactionand maldirectionof attentionon the part of membersof a

TABLE XVII PARENTALSTATUS OF HEADS OF HOUSEHOLDS

No.of Households ParentalStatus Reporting PercentagePretg Bothparents ...... 8i8 8i. 8 One parent-father...... 20 2. O Oneparent-mother ...... I20 I2 .0 Neitherparent present ...... I6 I.6 Non-familygroups ...... 26 2.6 Total ...... I,ooo IOO familygroup, we call thatgroup an "unwholesomefamily." Such familiesmay not come under the supervisionof any organized socialagency; nor is it necessarythat they be in adverseeconomic conditionsto showsigns of degeneracyand social unwholesome- ness. Slumshave been characterizedas "areas of lost souls and missions,'2 areas whereindividuals and familygroups are living in enforcedintimacy with people whomthey naturally shun and avoid; areas wherethere are no standardsof decencyor social conductexcept those imposed by outsideauthority. In such an environmentthe individual has no status,there is no representative citizen,the human desires for recognitionand securityremain unsatisfied.3

I See Amer.Jour. of Sociol., XXVII (September,1921), i6o. 2 Froma mimeographedcircular issued by Divisionof ImmigrantHeritages, AmericanizationBureau, New York,January, igig. 3 JosephLee, referringto the disorganizinginfluence of the slumenvironment, writes (Play in Education 19I91, P. 382): "The danger, oftenrealized, is that the citydweller may have no neighbors,or at least no neighborhood-nogroup of any

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Thereare manyinstances of unwholesome families to be found withinthis neighborhood; let us give a fewtypical examples. Case A: This is a familycomposed of husband,wife, and four smallchildren. Theylive in a four-roomeddwelling for which they pay $io per month. The home containsnone of the modern conveniencessuch as bath, ice box, or toiletfacilities. It is also bereftof musicalinstruments of any sort,books, or magazines. The familydoes not even take a dailypaper. The husbandis a day laborerand duringthe earlypart of theyear was offwork on accountof illness for four weeks. Accordingto its ownreport the familyoccasionally attends the street missionbut none of its membersbelong to any outsidesocial group. In the informant's language,"We nevervisit no one." The visitormakes the note, "The littlegirl, E, has nevergone to schoolalthough she is nine yearsof age and apparentlybright." Case B: This familyis composedat presentof just fatherand mother,the childrenare all grownup and away. The couplelive in about thesame conditionsas familyA. The homeis devoidof conveniencesand culturalmarks of any description.The husband drinks. He visitssaloons and his wifedoes fancywork all day. Theyare not on friendly terms with their neighbors who say, "They swearand drinktoo much." The old lady says,however, "They are jealous of us, theythrow bricks at our windows;it's a rough district." Investigator'snote: "The wifewears a hugesunbonnet, has a frightened,piping voice, crochets, tats, and does fancywork continuously;she has fouryelping dogs and threecats pennedup in thekitchen, evidently to protecther; sheis a regularstory-book typeof woman." Case C: In thisfamily there are husband,wife, and fourchil- dren,the eldest of whom is buteleven years of age. The familylives in a five-roomedframe dwelling which is obsoletein everyrespect. Theyhave beenin theneighborhood five years and in the citysix. The wifeand childrenoccasionally attend the Church of Christ but, outsideof this, they have no formof social life. The wifedislikes sortin whichhe feelsa membership-noimmediate social atmosphere, no standard whichholds him up and whichhe feelsit hisbusiness to uphold. He easilybecomes theman without a neighboralmost as maimedas theman without a countryor the manwithout a home."

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:42:15 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 508 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY theneighborhood because, "There are too manyniggers and dogs." Withregard to herneighbors she remarks,"We leave each other alone." Investigator'snote: "The womantold me thatshe lacked but one monthof graduating from a southernPresbyterian college whenshe married. She seemssatisfied with the slum life but told me how awfullypoor theyare; theycan't even affordan evening paper."l Case D: This familyhas seven members,father, mother, and fivechildren the eldest of whomis about eighteen. The family has beenin theneighborhood just six months,having moved there froma countrydistrict. So far,it has not founditself in its new environment.The onlyrecreational or social lifereported by the familyis an occasional attendanceat the motion-pictureshow. The familyhas lost social statussince coming to the cityand is in a positionto becomedisorganized. The mothersaid to theinvesti- gator,"We used to keep up in society,but just can't any more, my son coulddance like theydanced in the countrybut of course towndancing is morelike society." Theydo notlike the neighbors roundabout thembecause "they fight and beat each other." These are but a few cases selectedat randomfrom a large numberof a similarsort. They representwhat we call "unwhole- somefamilies," that is to say, someof the dominantattitudes and values whichare necessaryto make lifewholesome and thriving are missing. It shouldbe part of the duty of the neighborhood social workerto get acquaintedwith all such familiesunder his jurisdictionand help themto helpthemselves by discoveringtheir wantsand needs and thenlinking them up withthe organization or social groupwith which the respectivemembers most closely identifytheir personalities, thereby arousing a new interestand motivefor living. The maroonedfamily.-It is quite as importantfor the social workerin a broken-downneighborhood to knowhis sourcesof aid as to be familiarwith the pathologicalconditions with which he has to deal. For thisreason we wishto call attentionto the fact thatthere are manyfamilies in all partsof thisneighborhood who are as competentand as intelligentcitizens as are to be foundin any othersection of the city. Many of these familiesare long-

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timeresidents of this neighborhood,who on account of home- ownershipor other local attachmentshave been compelledto remainhere long afterthe surroundingarea has become disinte- gratedand brokendown. Such familiesusually have a desireto helprehabilitate their surroundings, but, realizing their individual helplessness,despair of any accomplishment.A few become rancorousand soured towardthe regionof theirhabitation and hold themselvesaloof fromany formof contactwith the people roundabout. Theirinterests and associationsare in othersections ofthe community,consequently they feel no dependencewhatever upontheir neighborhood institutions and have no interestin their welfare. The two followingcases are typicalexamples of "ma- roonedfamilies." Case A: This familyconsists of father,mother, and three grownupchildren. They own theirhome and have been living in the neighborhoodfor the past fifteenyears. The fatheris an engineer,the daughtera stenographer,and one of the sons is a studentat the university.The familyis livingin a section of the neighborhoodthat has fallento pieces duringthe last few years. The motherinformed the investigator: "This is a horrible place to live in but we can't leave on accountof our property." Investigator'snote: "This is a high type of family,not to be comparedwith the people round about." Case B: This familyis livingin the eastern sectionof the neighborhood.They have been in theirpresent home for thirty- nineyears. The familyis composedof a widowedmother, sixty yearsof age, and threegrownup children, two sons and -a daughter. The olderboy is an automobilesalesman, the youngerone had not returnedfrom the armyon the date of visit. All membersof the familybelong to the Catholicchurch which they report attending regularly.They have a phone,piano, and overone hundredbooks in theirlibrary. The familyis anxiousto sell theirhome and get out of the neighborhood.They considerthe people livinground about as "nothingbut trash." Investigator'snote: "This is a nice old lady; she considersthe neighborhoodrun down and refusesto have anythingto do withthe families around her except theK's." [To be continued]

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The Neighborhood: A Study of Local Life in the City of Columbus, Ohio. II. Author(s): R. D. McKenzie Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Nov., 1921), pp. 344-363 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2764546 . Accessed: 20/05/2014 12:41

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R. D. McKENZIE Universityof Washington

ABSTRACT Meaning of theconcept neighborhood. It is difficultto definethe neighborhoodin the modern city. Interpretationsof neighborhoodmade by various scholars seem to include threeelements: spatial proximityto some focus of attention;,physical or cultural differentiationfrom surrounding areas; intimacyof association among the inhabitantsof the area. Historyof theneighborhood. Primitive peoples forthe most part live in small territorialsocieties. The village communitytype of social organization representsthe dominanceof neighborhoodover kinshipas a bond of union. The ancient city was frequentlybut a federationof small locality groups. Even the moderncity grows,as a rule, by the inclusionof small suburbancommunities, many of whichretain theirlocal self-consciousnessfor years afterincorporation. Elements of neighborhoodassociation. Cooley refers to the neighborhoodas the universal nurseryof the primaryhuman ideals, such as kindness,loyalty, self-sacrifice, etc.; however hostilityas well as mutual aid may flourishin neighborhoodassociation. Commonsense conception of city neighborhood. Students in Columbusdefined neighborhood as the small personal area immediatelysurrounding their homes. Organized neighborhoodsin Columbus. Several differentstreets of the city have developed local organizationsfor the promotionof local interests,such as streetbeautification, protection from industrial encroachments,and the encouragementof sociability. A study of these organizationsshows that theyare largelythe productsof the initiative and industryof a fewindividuals or familieson each street.

III. THE NEIGHBORHOOD The generaleffect of the continuous sifting and sorting of a city's population,as we have seenin theforegoing chapters, is to produce a patchworkof local areas differentiatedfrom one anotherby cultural,racial, or linguisticpeculiarities. In commonparlance such areas are usually designatedas localities,districts, colonies, or neighborhoods.Since the neighborhood is one of our oldestsocial institutionsand sinceit is again cominginto the focus of attention ofwriters on urban questions,' let us brieflyexamine its applicability to locallife in thecity environ-ment. Probablyno otherterm is used so looselyor withsuch changing contentas theterm neighborhood, and veryfew concepts are more

ISee, e.g., such recentbooks as M. P. Follett's The New State (I9I8), and John Daniel's Americavia theNeighborhood (I920).

344

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difficultto define. The wordneighborhood has two generalconnota- tions: physical proximityto a given object of attention,and intimacy of association among people living in close proximityto one another. On the flat plains of the agriculturalstates there are no objectivemarks by means of whichthe strangercan distinguishone rural neighborhoodfrom another, yet almost any individual ap- proachedcan give a very definiteanswer as to what constituteshis neighborhood; it simply embraces the area round about his home in which reside those families with whom he has intimate and directpersonal relations. In the city,on the otherhand, thereare very distinctobjective differencesbetween the various residential areas, but little or no personal acquaintance or group association among the familiesof any particulararea. It is on account of these peculiaritiesof city lifethat we findso many differentusages of the termneighborhood. Some writersare accustomed to use the word as implyingmere physicalproximity to a certaininstitution or topographicalfeature.' Others refer to the neighborhoodas a cultural area,2 sufficiently differentiatedfrom the surroundingterritory to be consideredas a unit, while others again use the word in its traditional sense as implyingintimacy of association3and personal acquaintance.

I Stuckenberg,Sociology, I (I903), 8I. 2 Park definesthe neighborhood,"The City: Suggestionsfor the Investigationof Human Behavior in the City Environment" (American Journal of Sociology,XX, 579), as "a localitywith sentiments, traditions, and a historyof its own." 3 Cooley lists the neighborhoodas an example of a "primarygroup" (see Social Organization,chap. iii) and he definesa "primary group" elsewhere(Amer. Joutr. of Sociol., XXV, 327) as, "an intimategroup, the intimacy covering a considerable period and resultingin a habitual sympathy,the mind of each being filledwith a sense of the mind of the others,so that the group as a wholeis the chiefsphere of the social selffor each individualin it of emulation,ambition, resentment, loyalty, etc." Kellogg in a rather vague way says, "the neighborhoodis an intermediategroup between the family and the city, among those communal organizationsin which people live as distinctfrom purposeful organisations in whichthey work (Charities and Correction[I909], p. I76). Taylor (Religion in Social Action, p. i66) states that "'the neighborhoodis to be regarded as an extensionof the home and the church, and is identifiedclosely with both." Wood refersto the neighborhood(Amer. Jour. of Sociol., XIX, 580), as "the most satisfactoryand illuminatingform of the social extensionof personality, of the interlacingand comprehensivecomplex of the interplay of personalities; the social unit which can by its clear definitionof outline,its inner organic completeness,its hair-triggerreactions, be fairlyconsidered as functioning

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The conceptneighborhood has comedown to us froma distant past and thereforehas connotationswhich scarcely fit the facts whenapplied to a patchof life in a modernlarge city. As far back as we have recordhuman society seems to have been composedof a vast numberof small intimategroups more or less definitely attachedto fixedlocalities. W. G. Sumnersays (Folkways, p. I2), "The conceptof 'primitive society'which we oughtto formis thatof smallgroups scattered overa territory."Most of the nativepeoples of the presentday live in smallneighborhood groups knit together by notionsof kinship, commoncustom, and local feeling. The Dyaks of Borneo live in small villages,"each of whichis inhabitedby a dozen familiesand sometimesby several hundredpersons, peacefully livingtogether" (P. Kropotkin,Mutual Aid [I907], p. IIo). "The Aruntaof CentralAustralia are distributedin a largenumber of smalllocal groups,each of whichoccupies a givenarea of country and has its own headman . . . . and the membersof each group are bound togetherby a strong'local feeling"'(Edward Wester- marck,Moral Ideas, Vol. II [I908], i99). L. T. Hobhouserelates that " the Yahgans . . . . live in small groupsof threeor fourfami- lies,without any regularclan organization,though with fairly well establishedcustoms to whichthe feelingof the communitylends support,a supportwhich is frequentlyvindicated by forceof arms. The Veddahsconsist of a merehandful of scattered familiesliving sometimes in trees,in the rainy season oftenin caves, thoughthey are capable of makingprimitive huts. They are hunters,and each Veddah,with his wife and family,keeps his huntingground for the most part scrupulouslyto himself" (Morals in Evolution[i9o6], Part i, pp. 43-47). Referringto the Yakuts of SiberiaSumner says (quotedby Thomas,Social Origins, p. 83), "The largestnumber of settlements contain four or five huts, withtwenty or thirtysouls." Similarexamples might be added indefinitely. like a social mind." Sanderson (Publicationsof AmericanSociological Society, XIV, 86-87), distinguishesbetween the communityand the neighborhoodas follows: "the communityis the smallest geographicalunit of organized association of the chiefhuman activities; ....the neighborhoodis the smallest association group of families,with regard to place; it has no organizationof activities."

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The group forminghabit of human beings is, of course,a biologicalinheritance from our prehumanancestors. As Shaler says (The Neighbor,pp. 52-53), "the tribal habit of man is not an inventionmade by him. It evidentlywas inheritedfrom his ancestorsof the lowerlife, for among all the Quadrumanaclearly to be reckonedhis collateralbut near organicand psychickins- men,this social habit prevails. The creaturesusually dwell in groupswhich are evidentlyheld togetherby a sympatheticbond, andare in moreor less hostilerelations to othergroups of thesame ordiverse species, so thatwe mayregard the tribalmotive as even moreaffirmed than it couldhave beenby humanexperience." As long as primitivegroups lived in a moreor less migratory fashionthe conceptionof commonkinship, whether fictitious or real,seems to have been the dominantbond of union. But with thedevelopment of morestable modesof lifewithin definite ter- ritoriallocations the bond of kinshipgradually becomes replaced by the bond of neighborhood.Maine says (Early Historyof Institutions[i8751, p. 72), "I think,upon trustworthyevidence, that,from the momentwhen a tribal communitysettles down finallyupon a definitespace of land, the Land beginsto be the basisof societyin place of the Kinship." The universalityof the village communityform of social organizationhas beenwell attested by Maine, Gomme,and others. Outsideof the large cities the village communitycomprises the leadingmode of social lifefor the peoplesof all easterncountries. Moreoverthe presentRussian mir,the Polish zadruga,and the Swisscanton, all presentmany of thecharacteristics of their eastern prototypes.Furthermore, to quote W. G. Sumner(The Challenge ofFacts and OtherEssays, p. 3I4), "the picturepresented by the settlementsin thiscountry until the beginningof the eighteenth centurywas that of littlegroups of farmersscattered along the coastand rivers,forming towns under the loosest possible organization." These early villages,of course,formed the nucleiof our well-knownNew Englandtown system. Even withthe developmentof citylife the smallneighborhood unitstend to persistwithin the larger corporations. "The ancient city of Teheran . . . . was divided into twelve districts,almost totallyisolated from one anotherand permanentlyat variancewith

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:41:08 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 348 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY one another" (R. M. Maciver,CoMmunity, p. 25I). The same tendencyis seen in Rome whoseseven hills formed seven distinct neighborhoods.De Coulangesin TheAncient City shows that the Greekcity was but a federationof local groups,each of whichhad its ownreligious and civilindependence, and actedas a unitresent- ing interferenceon the part of the largercommunity. Of course similartendencies toward local autonomymay be witnessedcon- stantlyin ourown cities at thepresent time. Ourcities grow by the inclusionof "satellitecommunities" and frequentlysuch commu- nitiesrefuse to becomeabsorbed in the largercorporations, and usuallyafter surrendering their political autonomy retain for years a stronglocal consciousnessand socialindependence. In its traditionalapplication the termneighborhood stood for ratherdefinite group sentiments, which were the productsof the intimatepersonal relations among the membersof the small isolated communitiesof whichsociety was formerlycomposed. The primaryface-to-face associations of the traditionalneighborhood group formeda universalnursery for what Cooley calls "the primaryideals," such as loyalty,truth, service, and kindness.' Small homogeneoussocieties, such as the Russian mir, the Polishzadruga, or theisolated rural village, furnish our best exam- plesof primary groups, that is ofgroups with a singleset ofdefini- tionsof life to whichall the membersadhere with an emotional unanimity.The ideas pertainingto groupwelfare have dominance overindividual wishes, consequently there is a minimumamount of individualitywhen comparedwith life in a moderncity. The solidarityof the traditionalneighborhood is of the spontaneous unreflectivetype.2 It is the result of commonhuman nature respondingto commonstimuli. The relationbetween individuals of thegroup is thatof equality. Referringto theearly village life in thiscountry, Sumner says (op. cit., p. 296), "It is plain that equalityis theprevailing characteristic of thissociety; its members areequal in fortune,in education,in descent(at leastafter a genera- tionor two),in mode of life,in social standing,in rangeof ideas, in politicalimportance, and in everythingelse whichis social,and I Social Organization,chap. iv. 2 See JamesMark Baldwin, The Individual and Society,chap. ii, i9Ii.

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nobodymade them so." Wood,in recountingthe personal traits of ourmodern professional neighbor, the cityboss, expresses a similar idea (Amer.Jour. of Sociol., XIX, 580), "The local boss, however autocratiche maybe in thelarger sphere of the city with the power whichhe getsfrom the neighborhood, must always be in and of the localpeople: and he is alwaysvery careful not to tryto deceivethe localpeople so faras theirdistinctively local interests are concerned. It is hard to fool a neighborhoodabout its own neighborhood affairs." It is thisinsistence upon socialequality among neighbors that deters the developmentof latent leadershipin our rural communities.' The solidarityof the traditional neighborhood included physical as well as social objects. The old swimmingpool, the familiar hills and trees, the architectureand location of buildings,all functionas sentimentalattachments of the neighborhood.The individualbecomes so closelyidentified with all these objects of earlyand intimatecontact that theytend to forma part of the "extendedself." Dr. W. I. Thomas,2in discussingthe effortsof Germanyto PrussianizePoland, says, "If the primarygroup is distinguishedby face-to-faceand sentimentalrelations I thinkit is correctto say that the land of the peasantwas includedin his group. And thisland sentimentis the mostimportant factor in thefailure up to date ofthe plans of thecolonization commission." Attachmentfor locality is even today a significantforce in the segregationof a city'spopulation. Loyalty,self-sacrifice, and serviceare the naturalproducts of the intimatepersonal neighborhood groups. As Tuftssays, kindness suggestskinness, and applied originallyto membersof the "we-group"only.3 Kropotkin,in hisMutual Aid furnishesus with a vast array of evidenceconcerning the reciprocalkindness of membersof primitive communities. Sumner describes (quoted by Thomas,Social Origins,p. 79) the neighborlyrelations of the Yakuts ofnorthern Siberia: "If one man's cow calvesearlier than thoseof theothers, custom requires that he shall sharecream and

I See an articleby G. WalterFiske, Publications of Amer. Sociol. Society, XI, 59. 2 Amer.Jour. of Sociol., XIX, 632. 3 Cf. Tufts,Our Democracy,Its Originsand Its Tasks, chap. iii.

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milkwith those neighbors who at that timehave none." Cooley says (SocialOrganization, p. 38), "One is nevermore human, and, as a rule,never happier, than when he is sacrificinghis narrowand merelyprivate interest to the highercall of the congenialgroup." In his book The AmericanTown (I906), p. 32, J. M. Williamsde- scribesthe typicalrelationship between neighbors as follows:"A manmust stand ready to helphis neighbor as wellas himself.Thus, when two woodsmenwere workingindependently in adjoining wood-lots,each wouldimpulsively run to the help of the otheras he struggledto 'skid'a log upona bob-sled. 'I'll helpyou and you helpme in return'represents the complete relation.. . .. To be so 'close-fisted'as to fail of generosityin timeof a neighbor'sneed was bad enough,but to failto return,when needed, help generously extended,was meannesstoo abject forexpression." Of coursesocial frictionand pettyjealousies are as muchthe productsof neighborhoodassociation as are self-sacrificeand mutualaid. As E. C. Hayes' says, "While instinctivecohesion is strongerin smallgroups, so also is personalfriction greater, and themembers of a smallgroup much in spatialproximity must have morein commonin orderto rendertheir union permanent and strong,than is requiredto bindtogether larger populations." In orderto getan expressionof the common-sense conception of theneighborhood within the city,I had thestudents in my classes at Ohio State University,who wereresidents of Columbus,write answersto thefollowing questions: "Draw a map of that part of yourcity which you considerto be yourneighborhood. Indicate on the map the locationof yourhome, and state the numberof years you have lived there. Give your reasons for bounding your neighborhoodas you do." The followingstatements are typicalof thefifty-seven replies analyzed:

(i) Theseare the streets I traverseoftenest. (2) On thesestreets live the peoplewith whom I am acquaintedand associate. (3) Whenwe getin this partof townwe feelthat we are gettingnear home. (4) I considerthis my neighborhoodbecause it includesthe housesnearest my homeand because I knowmost of the families in thisvicinity very intimately. (5) Theseare the streetsthat I usedto play in and I stillknow most of the families residing here.

I Introductionto Sociology,p. 76.

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(6) To my mind the wordneighborhood includes the people rightaround my house; it is thevicinity very near. (7) We speak ofanything happening within a squareof our homeas beingin our neighborhoodbut we do not knowhalf of thepeople who live there. We have lived on thisstreet six years. (8) I used to playwith the childrenfrom most of thesefamilies [that is, familieswithin an area of about a block and a halfon the same street]; my small brothermade meacquainted with others. I have livedhere nine years. (g) Neighborhoodto me meansthe people livingin the same blockwe live in, thoseacross the alley in therear, and thoseliving in the blockacross the street. (io) I considerthe crossstreets as the boundaryof our neighborhood,the streetsbeing so wide, especiallywhere I live, that we do not recognizethe people on the otherside. I havelived here fourteen years. (ii) I considerthat this constitutes our neighborhood[an area of a couple of blocks]because these are the familiesthat we comein contactwith most frequently on thestreet car and at communitygather- ings. (I 2) I considerthese particular streets my neighborhoodbecause generally theyare the only surroundingscene and the only people with whom we comein dailycontact. (I3) I have no particularreason for using this boundary as the boundaryof our neighborhoodexcept that it is the block in whichwe live,the families here are not of thesociable type; I have livedhere four years. (I4) I shouldsay thatmy immediate neighborhood consists of the two southeast and southwestblocks; while the block at the northwestis also my neighborhood it is not my immediateneighborhood because we do not associate with thesepeople and the spirit of the two factionsis different.I have lived in this section for six years. (I 5) I considermy immediateneighborhood aroundthe square S. to M. avenues since that is whereI have lived the last fiveyears. I thinkthis is my neighborhoodbecause we meet these people oftenerand feelthat we knowthem better. From a considerationof these statementsand froman examina- tionof the maps which accompanied them, it is clearto me thatthe conceptionwhich the average citydweller holds of his own neighborhood is that of a very small area withinthe immediatevicinity of his home,the limits of which seem to be determinedby the extent ofhis personal observations and dailycontacts. But in referringto neighborhoodsin generalin Columbusmuch largerareas seemto be implied,spatial proximity to somecentral focusof attentionbeing the determiningfeature. For exampleit is local customto speak of "Indianola," "Glen Echo," "The Hilltop," "West Side," etc., as various neighborhoodswithin the city,although each of these areas embraces many streets and contains thousands of people. What then is the city neighborhood? For certainadministrative purposes it is importantto considerthese

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:41:08 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 352 THE AMERICAN JOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY larger geographical expressionsas units of neighborhoodinterest, while for other purposes, where intensityof social opinion counts, the smallernuclei of common life may prove more effectiveunits. The segregationof thepopulation within a cityalong racial, economic, social,and vocationallines, tends to giveto differentlocal areas at least an externalcoloring which enables one to draw more or lessdefinite lines of demarkationbetween them. In thecourse of time these different areas acquire a sort ofhomogeneity and a historicalcontinuity which develops a rudimentarysense ofself-consciousness. This self-consciousness is usually enhanced if the area acquiresa namedesignating its chief feature of attention, such as Niggertown, Flytown,Little Italy, etc. Suchareas are, as a rule,in constantprocess of change,but sincetheir selective influences attract about the same class of peoplefrom year to yeartheir external aspects maintain a somewhatregular form. Whiledistricts of this sort vary greatly in sizeand in socialsolidarity, and whilethey may possess but fewof the characteristicsof the traditional neighborhood,nevertheless they possess sufficient significance from the standpointof social selection, and have sufficient importance in communityorganiza- tionto warrantsome such characterization as the term neighborhood. If we considerthe neighborhoodthen in this more general sense as representinga patch ofcommon life within the largercommunity, which is sufficientlydifferentiated from the city as a whole to be thoughtof as a unit, we have several differenttypes of neighborhoods representedin Columbus. Taking as our criterionfor the classificationof theseneighborhoods, the chiefelement in population selection,we have three grades of economic neighborhoods,'that

I ConsultMap II, p. 153, "Economic Areas in Columbus,"for the locations of these differenteconomic neighborhoods. It will be observedthat, with but one exception, the south side, the economicstatus of the wards increasesas one goes fromthe center out towardthe peripheryof the city. In fact the most exclusiveneighborhoods all lie beyond the corporationlimits. On the east side the suburbanvillage of Bexley is the restrictedarea forthe city's social elite. For manyyears Columbushas vainlysought to have this village enterthe corporation,but up to date the villagershave preferred theirlocal autonomyto the anonymityof city life. On the uplands, just beyond the westernextremity of the city,are threeother exclusive residential villages, Grand View Heights,Marble Cliff,and Upper Arlington. These villages are all of comparatively recentorigin and the real estate restrictionslimit the populationto the wealthyhome- owningclass. Local consciousnessis quite pronouncedin all threeand several experiments in communityenterprises have been introduced,such as the local paper, the communitychurch, the communitykitchen, etc. Anothernew residentialsection of the more exclusivetype is fast developingjust beyond the northernlimits of the city. Many new additionshave been opened up in this vicinityduring the past fewyears and the Highlands east of the OlentangyRiver are rapidlybecoming adorned withbeautiful homes and picturesquegardens.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:41:08 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE 353 is, areas representingthree fairlydistinct economic divisions. Thesemay be groupedas poor,middle class, and wealthyresidential districts. On theother hand, we have distinctracial and nationalgroups wherethe chief elements in population selection are consciousnessof kind,common language, and traditions. Theseare representedin Columbusby the largenegro neighborhood on East Long Street, by themixed Hebrew and coloredneighborhood immediately east of the centralpart of the city,and by the homogeneousGerman neighborhoodon SouthHigh Street. In thethird place we have theindustrial neighborhood, in which residethe employees of a largeindustry, as, forexample, the " South Side Neighborhood"surrounding the ColumbusSteel Works,the chieffactor in socialselection being convenience to place ofemployment. Such neighborhoodsusually represent a mixtureof racial and nationalgroups. Again we may classifyneighborhoods according to the status of theirhistorical development into nascent,self-conscious, and disintegratingneighborhoods.I Like all othersocial groups,city neighborhoodsare ever in a processof change. Fluctuationsin rentaland land values,due to the vacillationof citylife, produce continuousmovements of populationfrom one sectionof the city to another,thus changingthe economicand racial complexionof neighborhoodswithin a comparativelyshort space oftime.2 The cityneighborhood differs considerably from its traditional prototypein thatit representsa muchmore selected social group. Economic,racial, and culturalforces, by distributingthe population intodifferent residential sections, give to the cityneighborhood an externalappearance of homogeneitythat is not frequentlyfound in smallvillages or ruralneighborhoods-a homogeneity, however, as we shall see later,which is more apparentthan real. Racial prejudice,national clannishness, and class conflict,all functionas

I See Robert E. Park, Op. Cit., p. 58I. 2 This is especiallytrue with respect to immigrantneighborhoods. The economic progressof the immigrantis faster,as a rule,than that of the slum-dwellingAmerican; consequentlymore immigrantsthan Americansgraduate fromthe poorer neighborhoods. The districtsurrounding the Godman Guild SettlementHouse of Columbus has, according to the Settlementhead, changed its immigrantpopulation several timesduring the past decade.

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social forcesto givethe cityneighborhood what self-consciousness or solidarityit maypossess.

IV. EXPERIMENTS IN NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATION The cityof Columbusoffers a numberof rather unusual examples of the spontaneousdevelopment of local sentiment.In addition to the local improvementassociations which have been organizedin each of the largerlocal divisionsof the cityfor the purposeof directingthe generalbusiness interests, several streets have formedorganizations to promotethe interests of the residents on a singlestreet or cityblock. Some of theseorganizations have interestinghistories, and as experimentsin the developmentof local sentimentare worthyof consideration.As far as can be ascertainedthese local organizations are all confinedto thenorthern and westernsections of the city,regions which are comparatively new,and forthe most part occupiedby home-owners. OaklandAvenue Flower and GardenClub.,-Oakland Avenue is locatednear the center of the sixteenth ward, a fewblocks north of the universitycampus. The part of the streetthat is organized extendsfrom High Streeton the westto IndianolaAvenue on the east-a distanceof about a quarterof a mile. The streetis now thirteenyears old, having been held in reserveby a real estatefirm whilethe surroundingarea was builtup. A numberof property restrictionshave givena physicaluniformity to the streetand at the same time made for a selectionof population. There is a buildingrestriction ranging from $2,500 to $3,000 (pre-warprices) as a minimumcost per residence. The lotsare wideand thehomes are requiredto be builtthirty feet back fromthe curbline, thus leavinga uniformlywide space for lawns and shrubs. Double dwellingsand apartmenthouses are forbidden,also places of business. The streetbecame formally organized in thespring of I9I2, the yearof the ColumbusCentennial. Duringthat spring the Colum- bus Flowerand Garden Club was formedin orderto promote generalinterest in citybeautification. A prizewas offeredfor the

1 See Map I, p. 148, forthe locations of each of the neighborhoods described in this chapter.

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best-keptstreet in thecity. Underthe capable direction of one of theleading residents of the street, the "Oakland Flower and Garden Club" was organized. Meetingsof the residentswere held in the NorthwoodSchool, located at thefoot of the street, with the result thatan enthusiasticprogram for street beautification was adopted. Large granitebowlders were erectedat both ends of the street, givingit an individualityand prominenceapart fromthe general neighborhood.Uniformity in design of lawn decorationwas adoptedwith the resultthat, at the end of the year,the citizens ofthe street celebrated the jubilee of being the proud winners of the civicprize for the most beautiful street in the city. Meanwhilea localpaper, the OaklandAvenue News, was periodicallypublished and distributedto all thefamilies on the street. The enthusiasmengendered by this successfulstart has never quite died out althoughit has diminishedin intensityand has requiredcareful fanning on the part of a fewindomitable spirits whose interestin the success of the undertakinghas remained unabated. Althougha comparativelystable street,the extentof changeof residence has beenone ofthe chief causes of the fluctuat- inginterest in theorganization. Of the eighty-fivefamilies whose nameswere listed in the streetdirectory published in the Oakland AvenueNews for September, I9I3, thirty-eighthad movedfrom the streetbefore June, I9I8-a periodof five years. The organization,designed primarily to promotestreet beautification,subsequently gave rise to manylocal activitiesof a social and neighborlynature, among which may be mentionedthe admir- able practiceof sendingfloral tributes to neighborsin case of sicknessor death; socialpicnics in whichall familieson the street participate,ladies' clubs,and a renownedbowling team, composed ofmale residentsof the street. NorthwoodAvenue Flower and Garden Club.-Nortlhwood Avenue,which lies nextto, and runsparallel with, the streetjust described,supports a similarorganization. In factI mighthave describedthe two streets together, were it notfor the strong neigh- borlyrivalry and unitarygroup character of each. Northwoodhas a physicalbasis forgroup life precisely similar to that of Oakland Avenue. It formeda part of the same real estate divisionand,

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therefore,was subjectedto thesame streetrestrictions. Its street organizationwas motivatedby the same cause as that of Oakland Avenuebut did not startoff under quite such propitiouscircum- stances. It tookthe Northwoodresidents a bit longerto get into teamlikeaction, but once startedtheir organization has retained its healthand vitalityeven better than that of its rival. In thespring of I9I 7,with the assistance of some of my students, I madea briefstudy of theNorthwood organization in orderto get someclues respecting the nature of its grouplife. Everyhome on thestreet was visitedwith a briefquestionnaire. I shallsuccinctly summarizehere the results of our findings at thattime. Question- naireswere filled out by fifty-onefamilies. Of these elevenhad beenliving on thestreet less thanone year, thirty-two less than five years,and the remainderfrom five to ten years. All but threeof the male heads of householdswere native-bornAmericans, and thirty-sevenof the fifty-onemale heads wereborn in the state of Ohio,six ofwhom were born in Columbus. In replyto the question,"Why did you selectthis street as a place of residence?" fourteensaid that it was on accountof the attractivefeatures of the street; anotherfourteen said it was because the house suited them; twentycould give no particular reasonfor their decision; while three maintained that their selection was due to the presenceof friendsand relativeson the street. Moreover,thirty-two families stated that they knew nothing of the streetorganization, prior to takingup residencethere, while the remainingnineteen families were familiar with the socialactivities of thestreet and weremore or less attractedto it on thataccount. With respect to intimacyand personal acquaintance,nine familiesstated that they did nothave evena speakingacquaintance withany otherfamily on the street; thirty-fivefamilies reported thatthey had a speakingacquaintance with more than ten families on the street; while seven reportedthat they had a speaking acquaintancewith more than thirtyfamilies. Six familiesstated thatthey were related, either by bloodor marriage,to one or more otherfamilies on the street. Of the male heads ofhouseholds twelve reported no affiliation withcommunity clubs or fraternalorders of any sort; twenty-three

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weremembers of but one fraternalorganization; while sixteen belongedto two or moreclubs. As regardsreligious affiliations, elevendifferent sects were represented,including membership or attendanceat twenty-fourdifferent churches. Moreover,the leadingbread winnerswere distributedamong twenty-eightdif- ferentforms of occupation, and ofthese only nine reported drawing anyclientage from the immediate neighborhood. An effortwas made to sound the attitudesof the different householderstoward their street organization and its leadingfunc- tions. Ofthe fifty-one families, twenty stated that they had never attendedany of the street'smeetings; thirty-nine considered the organizationdefinitely worth supporting; of these, twentycon- sideredits mainvalue to be thepromotion of friendship and neigh- borlyfeeling, while the remainingnineteen valued it chieflyfrom thestandpoint of its effectupon property values. Twelvefamilies did not considerthe organizationworthy of support. Concerning the streetpractice of sendingflowers to neighborsin the eventof sicknessor death, twenty-ninefamilies reported having received suchfloral tributes, and all but fourindicated positive appreciation ofthe custom and thoughtit shouldbe continued. Turningnow to a considerationof the streetpaper, the North- woodAvenue Bulletin, this little paper has been publishedat irregu- lar intervalsever since I9I2. It is an unusuallyattractive little sheetcontaining many interesting views of the street and supplying informationwith respect to gardeningand othermatters of family interest. It also carriesa page headed "NeighborhoodHappen- ings," underwhich are listednews items pertaining to the people of thestreet. This paperrepresents the idea ofone or twoenthu- siasticpromoters and has beenpublished at a loss to thefew people mostintimately concerned. An effortwas made to ascertainthe attitudesof the householders toward this paper, with the interesting resultthat forty-twoof the fifty-onefamilies were strong in their approval of it and consideredthat its publicationshould be continued. Althougha fewof the families residing on thisstreet at thetime theabove survey was madewere opposed to anyattempts to start "this smalltown stuff " in thecity, still all but fivemaintained that

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:41:08 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 358 THE AMERICAN JOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY it wouldcause themconsiderable regret to have to leave thestreet. Manyfamilies who stated that they had notthe time to participate activelyin thework of the street organization nevertheless indorsed themovement as beingdistinctly meritorious. NinthAvenue neighborhood.-Another interesting example of local manifestationof neighborhoodsentiment and one which has been broughtto the attentionof the citizensof Columbusfor thepast decadeor so is thatof the residents of West Ninth Avenue. This littlestreet, only two short blocks in length,is locatedclose to the southwestcorner of the universitycampus, in Ward I5. The Neil Avenuestreet-car line forms the eastern boundary of the neighborhoodand theuniversity farm borders it on thewest. Unlikethe streetsjust described,the NinthAvenue neighbor- hoodsupports no formalorganization or streetpaper, but foryears past the residentsof the streethave shownevidence of a distinct groupfeeling which reaches its highestculmination every year in a Fourthof Julycelebration. At this time the streetis ropedoff fromcity traffic and all the residentsof the blockparticipate in a generalstreet picnic, followed in the eveningby a displayof fire- works,which has becomea traditionin the local lifeof the community. The streetis muchshorter than eitherof the othersde- scribed,making it unnecessaryto develop secondarymeans of communication,such as thelocal newspaper. In physicalappearance the streetdiffers considerably from the surroundingarea. In thefirst place it is builtup witha distinctly superiortype of residencefrom that foundin the neighboring locality, the assessed value of the homes ranging from$4,000 to $I5,ooo. The lawns are spaciousand uniformlydeep, lendinga unitarycharacter to thestreet. In our briefstudy of this streetwe foundthat its grouplife dependedvery largelyupon the energeticactivities of a single family. The head of thishousehold and his wifemake a hobbyof fosteringneighborhood sentiment among the residents of the street. The meetingsthat are heldto plan entertainments,etc., are usually conductedat thisman's residence. In additionto theclub lifethat prevails among the residents of thisstreet, such as picnicsfor the children,social activitiesof the

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women,and quoit gamesamong the men,various other forms of collectiveaction for local purposes have takenplace. For instance, thestreet has persistentlyacted as a unitto keep its westernvista overthe universityfarm free from obstruction. It has also had severalexperiments in corporateaction in fightingthe intrusionof objectionablestructures within its limits. GlenmawrAvenue Improvement Association.-This little neighborhoodis locatedin an attractivespot near the northern end of the sixteenthward. The natureof this community and thepurpose of its organizationare well describedin the followingwords of its secretary: There is a park thirty-fivefeet wide and about one thousandfeet long in the centerof GlenmawrAvenue, and whenthe streetwas improvedthis space was leftby the citywith no improvementswhatever, not even grass. It was necessaryfor the propertyowners to improvethe conditionof thispark, and, therefore,the organization was formedwith a view to beautifyingthe park and establishinga standardin the carryingforward of any improvementson the street,such as placingshade trees,constructing sidewalks, placing steps from the streetto the yard, etc. Presentmembership, sixty-eight families. Any propertyowner on GlenmawrAvenue or any familiesrenting property located on thatstreet are eligibleto becomemembers. The organizationwas able to have an ordinancepassed throughcouncil permittingthe placing of the sidewalkswithin two feetof the curbrather than fivefeet as is ordinarilyrequired, which avoided the cuttingoff of the lawns, thusreducing the front yard space. The park whichwas simplya bare space of ground,has been made level, fertilized,and a good standardof grass obtained. Seventyshade treeshave been placed along the edge of the park and betweenthese shrubbery has been placed. At the ends of the park flowerbeds withperennial flowers are maintained and gravelwalks placed at intervalsacross the park to avoid persons having to cross fromone side of the street to the other walkingon the grass. An ordinancewas passed last fallby the Councilof the City of Columbus, at the suggestionof the Association,requiring the installationof fivecobble- stone pillars,on whichcluster lights will be installedthrough the centerof the park. The grassin thepark is takencare of by the residentswithout expense. This Associationalso endeavorsto have at theirbusiness meetings social entertainmentsfor the residents of the street only, and by so doinghave created a friendlyfeeling among the residentsthat could not otherwisehave existed. The moneynecessary to carryon the improvementsthat have been made in thepark is obtainedby assessmentof the variousresidents of thestreet, the

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:41:08 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 360 THE AMERICAN JOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY amountbeing collected without any hardship, and thereis alwaysmoney in thetreasury to carryon improvementsthat might be authorized.7

The foregoingorganization was formedin the spring of I9I4, its meetingsare held monthlyat the home of one of the residents of the street. It serves an area of about two city blocks. The Hilltop neighborhood.-TheHilltop is more than a neighborhood; it is a city within a city. It is a communityof about I5,000 people, topographicallyseparated fromthe city proper. It is an area completein itself,having its own schools,churches, stores, shops, parks, fire-hall,social clubs, local newspaper, and improvement association, which is really equivalent to a chamber of commerce. The Hilltop, as indicatedon Map I, page I48, lies in the extreme westernend of the city,about fourmiles west of the state's Capitol. As the name impliesthe Hilltop is a promontoryrising considerably above the "flats" which separate it from the heart of the city. The division now comprisesan area of several square miles and includes withinits confinesthe State Hospital for the Insane. Comparativelyspeaking the Hilltop is a new section of Colum- bus. Its chief developmentas a residentialarea has taken place during the past fifteenyears, but once available for settlementits attractivetopographical features made it an eldorado forthe better class of home-seekers,with the result that it is now a city of new homes clustered around the few historic residences which graced the landscape in days gone by. Moreover,it is a regionof considerable historicimportance. Camp Chase of Civil War renown was located here, also the Confederate Cemetery, which lies in the southwesternpart of the district. Barring a small Italian neighborhood,located on McKinley Avenue at the rear of the Hospital for the Insane, and a larger colored colony located in the south along Sullivant Avenue, the Hilltop is primarily inhabitated by white American stock, the majority of whom are home-ownersof the more prosperous class. An astonishinglylarge numberof the leading public men of the city have theirhomes in this region,which fact doubtlessly accounts, in good measure at least, for the public spiritdisplayed among the residentsof the Hilltop.

I Letter receivedfrom the secretary,January, I920.

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The negroneighborhood, just referredto, is the"fly in theoint- ment"with respect to the communitypride of the people of the Hilltop. This coloredsection, covering an area ofabout six blocks, witha populationof approximately600 people, is not a recent development.A numberof the coloredfamilies have residedin thisspot for over thirty years, but a freshinflux of coloredsettlers arrivedimmediately after the Springfieldriots a decade or so ago. A real estate dealer,devoid of "social vision," and "greedyfor gain" soldhis property to thesepeople with the result that they are nowfixtures in the community.Aside, however, from the acute social problemsarising out of theirpresence in the schools,the coloredpeople live to themselvesand do not comein contactwith thegeneral social life of the community. The coloredneighborhood has its own churches,stores, and motion-picturehouse, and the CampChase street-carline is used almostexclusively for transpor- tationto and fromthe city. Thiscolored neighborhood is one ofthe mostorderly and progressive negro localities in thecity. According to theestimate of one of theoldest colored residents, 75 per centof the familiesown theirhomes; and it is a matterof local pride that "no one has been sent to the penitentiaryfrom this district duringthe past twenty-fiveyears." The local consciousnessof the residentsof the Hilltop has manifesteditself in manyways. In the firstplace a local paper calledthe Hilltop Newsis publishedweekly and readby morethan "eight thousandHilltoppers every week." This sheet is the "officialorgan of theHilltop business men" and carriesadvertising and news itemsof local interest. It also servesas the official spokesmanfor the Hilltop Improvement Association, an organization of Hilltop residentsdesigned to promotethe welfareof the "Hilltop,its people,and theirhomes." The Hilltop ImprovementAssociation was organizedin I9II forthe purpose just stated. It was promotedby a numberof the mostenterprising citizens of the communityincluding one of the city'smost prominent councilmen. No local orgaknizationof the cityhas beenmore active in thepromotion of local interests,or has achievedmore for the territory served than the Hilltop Improvement Association. Its fieldof activitieshas includednegotiations with the citycouncil for the procuringof local satisfactions,such as a

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recreationbuilding, street-car accommodation, city deliveries, etc. It has also stimulatedlocal pridein thecare ofproperty and in the repulsionof undesirablecommercial encroachments, and at the same timehas done muchto engendera feelingof neighborliness and sociabilityamong the people. The communityconsciousness among the people of the Hilltop is due largelyto thepeculiar topographical features of the district whichgive it a unitarycharacter quite distinct from the rest of the city. Moreoverits conflictwith the city proper in regardto flood protectionmeasures relative to the floodarea whichseparates it fromthe down-towndistrict, has resultedin the developmentof the "we feeling"as contrastedwith the restof the city. In addition to this,the boostingattitude has been maintainedby the comparativelylarge number of enterprising public citizens who have theirhomes in this district. These home-ownersappreciate the significanceof local communitypride and consciouslyattempt to stimulateit in theirlocality. Conclusions.-Froma studyof theseand otherexperiments in neighborhoodorganization, I venturethe followingconclusions concerningneighborhood work in general. First, that neighborhoodsentiment is mosteasily engendered where the physical basis oflife affords a unitary character sufficient to differentiatethe neighborhood from the larger community.Second, neighborhood sentimentthrives best wherethere is a homogeneityand stability of populationaccompanied by a highpercentage of homeownership.' Third,other things being equal, the difficulty ofmaintaining local interestin local projectsvaries directlywith the extentof territorycovered and the numberof familiesincluded. There is considerableevidence to showthat a streetmore than two blocks in lengthtends to divideitself into subgroups, especially when two differentstreet-car lines are usedby theresidents in communication I Accordingto ourgeneral test of stabilityfor Columbus, i.e., thepercentage of theI9I7 electorswho re-registered in their respective precincts in I9I8, theorganized neighborhoodsjust describedrank comparativelyhigh in stability.The average re-registrationforthe entire city was 58.6 percent and forthe most stable precinct 77.8 percent. The precinctin whichOakland and Northwoodavenues are located had a re-registrationof 75.5 percent, the Ninth Avenue precinct a re-registrationof 69. I percent, and theGlenmawr precinct 64.9 percent.

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withthe down-towndistrict. Fourth,it may be stipulatedthat interestin the most obviously beneficial local enterprises, even under themost favorable conditions, is notas spontaneousand naturalas manyof our promoters of neighborhood enterprises seem to assume. In each experimentin neighborhoodorganization cited above, the interestin local affairshas been moreor less artificiallysustained by the"hard work"of a fewenergetic promoters. Nevertheless,the value of such streetorganization cannot be doubted. No one who has visitedany of the streetswhich have been describedwould questionthe superiormerits of corporate action over the haphazard ways of traditionalindividualism. Asidefrom the social benefits accruing from local collectiveaction, theeffect on realestate values is in itselfan importantconsideration, and one whichreal estatecompanies are beginningto appreciate.z xI have beeninformed by severalresidents of thestreets in questionthat they havebeen offered valuable concessions by real estatecompanies to promotesimilar organizationsin newresidential divisions which are now being put on themarket. [To be continued]

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The Neighborhood: A Study of Local Life in the City of Columbus, Ohio Author(s): R. D. McKenzie Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 5 (Mar., 1922), pp. 588-610 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2764865 . Accessed: 20/05/2014 12:45

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This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE IN THE CITY OF COLUMBUS, OHIO

R. D. McKENZIE Universityof Washingtor-

ABSTRACT Religionand thechurch. Differences in religiousand moralattitudes are potent elementsin the determinationof linesof associationin this neighborhood.The Catholicchurch is a dominantforce, but mostof theProtestant churches are losing ground. Missions,representing the moremystical creeds, enlist the interestof a considerableelement of the population.Education and delinquency.Part of this neighborhoodhas thelowest school-attendance rating of any section in thecity. The childrenattending one of theschools in thissection were rated by a psychologistas mentallytwo years below the children attending a schoolin a highereconomic area of thecity. Juveniledelinquency is slightlymore prevalent in thisneighborhood than in thecity as a whole. Neighborhoodsentiment. Positive sentiment for the neighborhoodand surroundingneighbors is rarelyexpressed by residentfamily groups. Occa- sionalstreets, however, contain intimate neighborly groups of people who are happy in theirphysical and socialsurroundings.

PART II. AN ANALYSIS OF A DISINTEGRATED CITY NEIGHBORHOOD-Continued IX. RELIGION AND THE CHURCH Ourchief interest in wishingto knowthe religious affiliations of thepeople of thisneighborhood is to get someclue concerningthe diversityof theirvoluntary associations. A study of any residentialarea withina cityalways reveals the greatcomplexity of theassociational life of its inhabitants. The crossingsand recross- ings of individualinterests show that neighborhoodassociation alone is not adequate to meet all the needs of humannature. Table XVIII gives in considerabledetail the religiouspreference of the adults of this neighborhoodas obtainedfrom our house- to-housecanvass. It includesall personsindicating religious preference,not merelychurch members or attendants. It willbe observedthat there is a considerablerange of difference in the religiouspreference of the peoplein thisdistrict. Approxi- mately32 per centof all adultsreporting, 38 per centof the men and 26 per centof the women,deny affiliation with any religious 588

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group. Of thoseindicating religious preference, 520, or 22.8 per cent,incline toward the Catholicfaith, and, forthe mostpart, are membersof the Holy Family Churchwithin the neighborhood. The remainingI,37, or 87 per cent,indicate preference for one or otherof the variousProtestant sects listed in Table XVIII. It willbe notedthat a veryconsiderable portion of those of Protes- tant faithbelong to the more mysticaland orthodoxtypes of religioussects. TABLE XVIII

RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION

Male Female Total

No. reportingno churchaffiliation ...... 488 363 85I No. reportingaffiliation with Catholic churches .... 237 283 520 No. reportingaffiliation with Protestantchurches. . 575 742 I,317 Sectarian distributionof Protestants: Methodist...... I95 247 442 Baptist ...... 73 9o I63 Presbyterian...... 68 82 150 Lutheran...... 47 60 107 Churchof Christ...... 36 65 IOI Episcopal ...... 37 49 86 United Brethren...... 34 38 72 Spiritualist...... I5 25 40 Congregational.0 ...... IO 20 ProtestantChurch ...... 8 3 II Seventh-Day Adventists...... 4 7 II Holy Rollers...... 4 7 II ChristianScience ...... I 8 9 Salvation Army...... 2 6 8 Missions...... 4I 45 86

Total numberof personsreporting ...... I,300 I,388 2,688

The factsbrought out in our religiouscensus, together with the generalattitudes expressed on religiousquestions, go to showthat the people of this neighborhoodconstitute a peculiarmixture of intensereligious enthusiasm combined with religious apathy or pronouncedreligious antagonism. In otherwords the apparent homogeneityof the populationof this area, as revealedby the externalphysical and culturalconditions, is, forthe most part, superficial.A studyof the innerassociational life of the people showsthat there exist wide chasms of difference in socialattitudes.

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That religiousbias is an importantfactor in determininglines of associationand grouplife is indicatedby the followingexpres- sionsof typicalattitudes: "We have our own Spiritualistfriends and don't botherany one else." "I don't like this district,too

MAP OF COLUMBUS,OHIO \S .\ \ ~~~SH4OWING

O1 LOCATION OF HOMES OF MEMBERS P .16!!i-4WARD 1 INDIANOLAPRESBYTERIAN CHURCH . : ,*" * S \(A ! NeighborhoodChurch) -. * ~~~Churcho ebr j d > i ~~~~~~~~~~~~omesomember-s

15 RD Fifth AvenueLnu

5 i ifi I \_ _ _ti~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Union_f ,

StosteHospft+Or

L v~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~4

Scole of miles

Mm VII manyniggers and Holy Rollers." Whenasked concerning attendance at motion-pictureshows, one womanreplied, "Pictures are sendingthousands straight to hell, dances are worse,I'm plain spoken." Anotherwoman remarked, "I wantto leave thisneighborhood,I have Catholicson both sides of me." Such examples

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mightbe multipliedindefinitely, attention is drawnto themmerely to illustratethe difficultiesinvolved when attemptingto bring

MAP OF

N .\ COLUVM BUS, OHIO SHOWING

O 16TH WARD' LOCATION OF HOMES OF MEM8ERS

e1o', *': FIRST CONGREGATIONALCHURCH ,}* \g 0 (A DownTownChurch)

Homes of members.

14TH 2DW R (oT.WR

" WArD *.0 1 TH WARD s

3, | | Scole Sfmiles ., ]

MAP IX individualsof different religious and moralattitudes into a common planeof association.' Citychurches may be roughlygrouped into two general classes: neighborhoodchurches and non-neighborhoodchurches. The

X"It is assumed,I suppose,that any idea orgroup of ideas, any belief or group of beliefs,may happen to be,or maybecome, a commoninterest, shared by a smallor a largenumber of individuals. It may drawand hold themtogether in bondsof

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 592 THE AMERICAN JOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY formertype selects its memberslargely on the basis of proximity, thelatter type selects its members chiefly on thebasis ofindividual preferenceor interestwithout respect to locality. The distributionof a church'smembers determines the r6le whichit may play as a neighborhoodbuilder. It is difficultto focus attentionon neighborhoodaffairs among a congregation thatis widelydistributed throughout the entirecity. Maps VIII and IX illustratethe two typesof churchesreferred to.

j TIffi-F+ C QC F COLUMBUS OHIO OX MAP Within the LEGENDctsredtheaeevNEIGHBORHOOD SURVEYED A Ch.,hes CHURCHES & MISSIONS

-Ste R.~I-dt ?

MAP X Withinthe districtsurveyed there are sevenchurches and five missions,the locationsof whichare markedon Map X. A sum- maryof the leadingfacts concerningthese religiousinstitutions will give some indicationof the role theyplay in the lifeof the neighborhood.In thefirst place it mustbe notedthat the churches varyconsiderably in theextent to whichthey draw their member- acquaintance, of association,even of co-operation. It thus may play a group-making r6le. Contradictoryideas or beliefs,therefore, may play a group-makingrole in a double sense. Each draws into association the individual minds that entertainit or findit attractive. Each also repels those minds to whom it is repugnant,and drives them toward the group whichis being formedabout the contradictoryidea or belief. Contradictionsamong ideas and beliefs,then, it may be assumed, tend on the whole to sharpen the lines of demarkationbetween group and group."-Giddings: "Are Contradictionsof Ideas and Beliefs Likely to Play an Important Group-makingR6le in the Future?" Amer. Jour. of Sociol., 2XIII, 784.

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shipfrom the neighborhood round about. For instancefour of the churchesreport that over go per centof theirmembers live within walkingdistance of theirrespective places of worship; the fifth churchreports that 50 per centof its memberslive withinwalking distance,the sixth35, and the seventhonly io per cent. This informationwill help in the interpretationof the followingfacts. TABLE XIX SummARY oF LEADING FACTS WITH RESPECT TO THE CHUJRCEnS

Protestant Catholic Churches Church

Total seatingcapacity of church auditoriums ...... 2,250 800 Total membership(Communicants) ...... I,730 1,400 Totalmembership under 2I yearsof age, four Protestant churchesreporting ...... 283 700 Total average morningattendance, four Protestant churchesreporting ...... 390 I ,250 Total average evening attendance,five Protestant churchesreporting ...... 623 ......

In the area coveredby our surveythere is a populationof approximately II,ooo. Considering the fact that these religious institutionsserve a muchwider region than that coveredby the survey,it is evidentthat theydo not play a veryimportant r6le in the lifeof the neighborhood.Of the fourProtestant churches supplyinginformation, 23.7 per cent of theirmembers are less than twenty-oneyears of age, and 50 per cent of the membersof the Catholic churchfall below this age limnit.Five of the six ministersof the Protestantchurches reported having difficulty in maintainingthe interest of the young people of their congregations, whileFather Clarke of the Holy FamilyChurch stated that he had no problemin this regard. Furthermore,the four Protestant churchesgiving information reported an average attendanceof only 33.7 per cent of theirmembers at the morningservice and 44.6 per centat theevening service. In additionto the churchesjust described,there are fivemis- sionsin theneighborhood. It is interestingto notethat these, like thesaloons, are locatedin the easternand northernsections of the district,that is, in themost disintegrated parts of the neighborhood. Thesemissions were all visitedby our investigatorand information was obtainedconcerning the typeof attendants,nature of teach-

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ings,and extentof theiractivities. They are all open on week nights,and reporta totalaverage nightly attendance of II5, and a totalaverage Sunday attendance of 320 people. In theirpreaching theyemphasize Holiness, Gift of Tongues, Sanctification, etc. An interestingfact about theseorganizations is thatmost of them are productsof the distantpast, some of them dating back half a centuryor more. They are real,live, social organismswhich owe theirexistence to the factthat theysatisfy real needsin the lives of a peoplewhose normal human desires have been stifledor mis- directedby an adversesocial environment.The missionaffords an opportunityfor self-expression and statusin anotherworld to thosewho, in the competitive social process, have lost social security and recognition,which indeed is theexplanation of the "lost soul." Of the six Protestantchurches in the district,five gave informationconcerning their Sunday-school activities. These reported a totalaverage weekly attendance in adult classesof II4, in inter- mediateclasses, 24I, and in classesfor children, I30. These figures becomesignificant when we interpretthem in thelight of the wider group statistics. In the territorywhich they serve there are approximately3,000 childrenunder eighteen years of age, which impliesthat onlyone out of everynine childrenis enrolledin a ProtestantSunday school. These figuresare somewhattem- porized,however, by the factthat the one Catholicchurch in the districthas an averageattendance of 360 childrenin its Sunday morningclasses. The six Protestantchurches report the followingsocieties in connectionwith their church work: eightsocieties for women with a totalmembership of approximately 250, fourof which are devoted to missionaryenterprises; four organizations for men with a total membershipof 97; fouryoung people's societieswith an approxi- mate membershipof 235; foursocieties for girls with a total membershipof IIo; and oneboy scout organization with a membership of thirty. Most of these societieshave meetingsonce or twicea monthwith occasional social functionsof a moregeneral character. In the six churchesreferred to, thereare nine parlorswith a total seatingcapacity for approximatelythree hundredpeople. Two of the churcheshave pianos,one a stereopticon,one a gym-

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nasium,two libraries,and fourhave kitchens. The recreational activitiesof the Catholicchurch are carriedon underthe direction of the parochialschool and Father Clarke reportsthat a fully equipped gymnasiumis now being constructedin the school building. In replyto the question,"What additionalequipment would thepastor like ?" wereceived the following statements: (i) "Basket- ball equipment,bowling alley in basement,a pool table, and a trainedsocial worker." (2) "A communityhouse and playground in connection." (3) "A stereopticonand somegood games." (4) "The bestthing is to have somereligious service every night in the week." (5) "A bulletinboard, a movielantern, above all we lack leadership." (6) One pastorconsiders that it is not the function ofthe church to engagein welfarework.

X. LEISURE-TIME ACTIVITIES This districtis by no meansa unitso faras equipmentof homes for leisure-timeactivities is concerned. With respect to the possessionof musicalinstruments, books, magazines, and indoor games,a considerablenumber of the homesare furnishedquite as well as those in the highereconomic areas of the city. This is particularlytrue with referenceto many of the homeswest of Sanduskyand south of Broad Street; and thereare also homes scatteredin othersections of the neighborhoodwhere facilities for indoorleisure-time activities are by no means lacking. On the otherhand, a largepercentage of the homes of the entire neighborhoodare patheticallybereft of any sortof equipment whatever for the fruitfulexpenditure of leisuretime. For instance,many of the homeshave littleor no readingmaterial other than the daily paper' and some familiesare eithertoo poor or too ignorantto affordeven that. It will be noted that over 50 per cent of our one thousand familieshave in theirhomes no musicalinstrument whatever. On the otherhand, 20 per centof the homescontain pianos. This is merelyfurther evidence of the heterogeneouscharacter of the "It is noteworthythat 76 per cent of the familiesreported taking as their dailypaper the Citizen, an eveningpaper which features dramatic news and human intereststories. This paper'scity circulation is quitelarge but notequal to thatof its less dramaticcompetitor the Columbus Despatch.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 596 THE AMERICAN JOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY populationof this neighborhood. Poverty and sufficiency,vicious- ness and respectability,are to be foundside by side in thisarea of thecity. It mightbe expected,owing to therelatively small part organized club lifeplays in the lives of the peopleof this district,that TABLE XX POSSESSION OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

FAMILIES REPORTINGEACH SPECIFIED KIND OF INSTRUMENT NAMIEOF MUSxCALINSTRUMENT No. Percentage

No instrument...... 506 50.6 Piano ...... 2I8 21.8 Organ...... I6 I. 6 Phonograph...... i8i I8. I Piano and phonograph ...... 58 5.8 Organ and phonograph...... 4 . 4 Unknown...... I7 I.7 Total ...... I OOO IOO socialvisiting would be thenormal and customaryway of spending leisuretime. For thisreason an attemptwas madeto ascertainto whatextent social visiting was customary,either within, or without the neighborhood.For obvious reasons it was difficultto get accurateinformation on this point; consequentlythe following sunmaryof facts is at best but an approximatestatement of thetruth. TABLE XXI EXTENT OF SOCIAL VISITING WITMN AND WITHOUT THE NEIGHBORHOODI

No. Percentage

Number of familiesreporting no visitingat all.235 23.5 Number reportingmore visiting within than without neighborhood. 5o6 50.6 Number reportingmore visitingoutside neighborhood.. 222 22.2 Number reportingequal amount of visitingwithin and withoutneighborhood .22 22. Unknown...... I5 1.5

Total ...... I,OOO IOO

I In our surveywe definedsocial visitingas calling on a familyin its home and not merely talking over the back fence. Neighborhoodwas defined as the area withinwalking distance of the home.

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The astonishingthing about this table is the largenumber of families-23per cent-that reportedno visitingat all. The usual explanationwas: "I have too muchto do, have no timefor visiting" or "I attendto my own businessand let otherfolk attend to theirs." It is apparentthat social visiting is, to a large extent,becoming obsoleteeven amongthe poorerclasses as a means of employing leisuretime. This is doubtlessdue to themobility and anonymity ofmodern city life where personal acquaintance and neighborhood associationhave largelybecome a thingof thepast.' In contrast to thisit is interestingto notethe repliesof the old-timersto the question,"What werethe principalold-time forms of recreation in theneighborhood ?" The followinganswers are typical: "Pic- nics, neighborhooddances, barn dances, fishingparties, friendly visiting,etc." There are two leadingamusement areas in the neighborhood wherelarge numbersof the people,both youngand old, gather everyevening. These areas are the best lightedand gayestspots in thedistrict. They can be easilyrecognized by even the casual visitorto the neighborhoodas the local fountainheads of amusement. Both are locatedon Broad Street-one betweenMay and Mill avenues,the otherfarther west on Broad betweenHartford and Jonesavenues. In the firstarea thereare two saloons,each havinga poolroomin the rear,a motion-picturetheater, an air dome,a restaurant,a barbershop, and a shoe-shiningparlor. The three motion-picturetheaters of the neighborhoodare locatedin the two areas just referredto. One of theseis really

I Withthe disintegration ofthe neighborhood a large element of any city's popu- lationis sufferingfrom the lack of intimate associates. Thisis particularlytrue with referenceto the mothersof smallchildren. The disorganizingeffect of loneliness has neverbeen adequately analyzed. GrahamWallas says (The GreatSociety [I9I4], p. 350), "The fact . . . . that thereis a Mean in our powersof formingacquaintance, thatit is joy to knowenough people and a wearinessto knowtoo many,affects not onlythe group-organization ofthe Great Industry, but also thelife of theindustrial workerduring the nowslowly lengthening interval between his workand his sleep. The youngunmarried artisan, or shopman,or clerkgenerally lives either in a one- roomedlodging with a defectof intimate association or in a greatboarding-house with an excessof it. Outsidehis factory or office,he mayeither know no one to speakto or have a hundrednodding acquaintances and no friend."

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 598 THE AMERICAN JOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY not a theater but an air dome and is closed during the winter months. Our investigatorvisited all three of these and had inter- views with their managers. From the standpoint of sanitation and fireprotection they were all reportedas being in "fair" condi- tion. The pictures shown were reported as being "thrilling, adventurous, daring"; nothing immoral or disorganizing was detected. According to the investigator's estimate of the age distributionof the audiences, 75 per cent in one, 65 per cent in the second, and 85 per cent in the third were under eighteenyears of age. The audiences were, for the most part, made up of people

LE-GEN D * ABSolos

EMotion Picre TheateBs D . tlernen+ Houset X ~Stea Rairods

4~ ~ ~~~

0CITY OF COLUMBUS, O 0

50, ~~~~~~~~MAPOF NEIGHBORHOOD SUJRVEYED SALOONS POQL-ROOMS& MOTONPICTURE THEATEFM

5100 0 50 O() 10 2000 2'0

MAP XI living within the immediate neighborhood,over go per cent of whom walked to the shows. The three theaters have a total seating capacity of 870, and an average daily attendance of about 8oo. In two of the theatersshows are held every evening with an additional matinee on Sunday. The thirdtheater is open but four evenings of the week. Pictures are changed in all three theaters for each performance. A charge of ten cents for adults and of fromsix to ten cents forchildren is made. It is very evident that the motion-pictureshow is the most popular formof amusement for the people of this neighborhood. The resultsof our house-to-housecanvass show that, forthe women

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and childrenat least,the movingpicture is the predominanttype ofrecreation. The comparativelyhigh percentage of small children in attendanceat the showsis explainedby the factthat the youth ofthe neighborhood are drawnto themore attractive and, for them, easilyaccessible forms of amusement in theheart of the city, while the oldermen attend the saloons and manyof the mothersremain at home. Thereare eightpoolrooms in theneighborhood, three of which are connectedwith saloons. They all happen to be located on Broad Street. The poolroomis primarilythe social club forthe youngmen. About50 per centof the patrons present on thedates of inspectionwere under twenty-one years of age. In all of the poolroomsthe conductwas reportedas being"orderly and quiet." The youngmen, in general,seemed to be wellacquainted with one anotherand used the poolroomas a socialmeeting place. As indicatedon Map XI thereare at present(August, I9I9) seventeensaloons within the area surveyed. These saloonshave all been inspectedtwice; once in May beforethe demiseof John Barleycorn,and againin August,two months after prohibition had gone into effect. An interestingfact broughtout in the second tourof investigation was that all thesaloons were found to be still openand doingan activebusiness in "soft" drinks,confectionery, cigars,lunches, etc. In reply to the question,"Does the pro- prietorintend to continuein business?" fourof the seventeen statedthat theyexpected to turntheir saloons into restaurants. Oneproprietor said thathe was makingmore money than formerly; theremainder indicated that theywere awaiting the results of the fallelections and the effectsof the adventof cold weatheron their softdrink business. Sixteenof the seventeensaloons were fur- nishedwith card tables; approximately75 per centof whichwere in activeuse on the eveningsof investigation. Thereare threedistinct types of saloonsin thisneighborhood, characterizedby the formof servicerendered and the class of patronserved. In thefirst place thereis the "social club" saloon whichserves as the eveningclubhouse for the oldermen of the neighborhood.Saloons of this typeare to be found,for the most part, west of GiftStreet; theyare all well equippedwith card

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tables and owe theirexistence largely to the fact that they are social meetingplaces forthe oldermen of the neighborhoodwho are too tiredafter a day'swork to go up townto themore dramatic but less sociableresorts on Highand Frontstreets. Veryfew men underthirty years of age werefound in thesesocial-club saloons. Moreoverthe patrons seemed to be intimatelyacquainted with one anotherand spenttheir time in talkingand playing"rummy" for the drinks. This type of saloon plays a veryimportant part in the lifeof thisparticular class of peoplein the neighborhood.In factthe club life afforded by the saloonseems to be the onlyform ofgroup association, outside the narrow circle of the home, in which theolder males participate. The secondtype of saloon is thatwhich caters to the transient class of patrons. Saloons of this characterare located on Broad Street,especially east of the subway wherethe chiefindustrial establishmentsof the neighborhood are situated. Such saloonsdo not encourageclub life, and thepatrons are, as a rule,strangers to one anotherwho merely stop in fora drinkand thendepart. The thirdand mostquestionable type of saloon is the"sporting- resort,"used as a meetingplace foryoung people who are attracted by this sort of life. The eastern section of the neighborhood containsseveral saloons of this character. The two saloons on StarlingStreet and the two on Lucas and Rich streetsare the leadingrepresentatives of this class. They containrear parlors of a somewhatquestionable nature and are frequentedby young men,"professional bums," who veryprobably do not live in the neighborhoodbut merelyresort there periodically. Such rendez- vousare a menaceto the lifeof the neighborhood inasmuch as they attractthe undesirableelements from the largercommunity and thus tend to disorganizethe local area by drivingout the more respectablefamilies.' I Nowhereis theindividualizing force of the city environment more clearly revealed thanin theindividual selection of leisure-timeactivities. Commercializedforms of recreationare organizedto caterto thespecial interests of the different age, sex, and culturalgroups of thepopulation. Thus in our neighborhoodthe oldermen prefer theinformal sociability of thesaloon club life; theyoung men are attractedby the moreactive forms of amusementoffered by thepoolroom, or by the sex attractions ofthe cabaret or cheapdance hal1; theyoung women attend the up-town dance halls or themovies; the small children attend the movies, while the mothers have little or no recreationallife save an occasionalvisit to themotion-picture theater or theclub lifeafforded by thechurch.

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Leisure-timeactivities of children.-Through the kind co-operation of the principalsand teachersof the threepublic schoolsin the neighborhood,a census was takenin the earlypart of May, 1919, of the after-schoolactivities of all the childrenin Grades III to VIII indusive. On a Mondaymorning the children were instructed by theirteachers to relatein writingjust how theyhad spenttheir timeafter leaving school Friday afternoon until they went to bed TABLE XXII TYPEs OF ACTIVITIESREPORTED BY 350 SCHOOLBoys FOR A Two-DAY PERIOD, MAY 23-24, I9I9

WORKING

TIME 19|^g^02R; iN ; t1 Ohrup SGoiN a X ~~O~~ ~ Street< S1eigTowx | cU2 | ?a$;c n| Trades forPay ren

Fri. afternoon 32.0 8.6 .8 i6.o 6.9 io.6 12.3 33.1 5.I Fri. evening. i6.8 7-4 20.0 I3.0 30.8 I.4 4.4 I5.4 4.6 Sat. morning..... I6. o I3*0 ...... 30.8 5 .0 7.0 I4.8 33.7 I 2.3 Sat. afternoon 25.4 9.2 3.8 I4.0 4-3 8.3 I3.4 21.7 14.0 Sat. evening. 9-7 8.3 27.4 I2.3 I2.3 3.0 8.6 i6.o I5.0

TABLE XXIII TYPES OF ACTIVITIES REPORTED BY 375 SCHOOL GIRLS FOR A Two-DAY PERIOD, MAY 23-24, I9I9

Time f S W ; I .

Fri. afternoon.. . 29.3 7.7 I.9 2. I 24.3 4.0 56. 0 8.3 Fri. evening.... 29.1 II.7 I4. I 4.0 38.i . 8 32.3 2.4 Sat. morning.... 12.3 5.1 7.5 . 3 7. I 2.4 79. 7 Io. 7 Sat. afternoon... 22. I I7.3 I8.3 i.6 I2.3 3.2 33.6 27.7 Sat. evening.... 20.0 I3.9 25.0 2.9 i8. i I .3 22.7 I5.7

Saturdaynight. In Tables XXII-XXIII an attempthas been made to classifythe recordedactivities according to thespecified timeintervals. Owingto thestriking dissimilarity of the activitiesreported by the boys and the girlsit was foundnecessary to make separate classifications.For instance social visitingand picnicingare popularactivities with the girls while fishing and roamingare more attractiveto the boys. In both tables the term"undesignate d

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play" includesall sortsof general statements such as "Afterschool I went home and played till suppertime" or "I went out and playedwith the kids." It willbe observedthat a veryconsiderable part of the play activitiesof both sexes is of thisgeneral, unorgan- ized, and undirectednature. It simplymeans that the children are out in the streetsand alleyschasing one anotheraround as the occasionor impulsemay direct. Play of thissort usually ends up in mischiefor disorderliness,with the subsequentformation of predatorygangs. The favoritegame among the boys is baseball. The girls,on the otherhand, seem to have no outstandingform of play. The traditionalattitude that a girlis supposedto workor mindthe baby ratherthan waste her time in play is clearlyexem- plifiedby thefacts revealed in thesetables. The largepercentage ofgirls who report "helping parents" shows that the main activity, afterschool hours, is doinghousework. Workingfor pay, however, is muchless commonamong the girls than among the boys, as over 20 per centof the latter report "working for remuneration." The mostpopular form of eveningamusement for both girlsand boys is goingto the movies. In thisrespect the percentagesfor both sexesare about equal. From20 to 25 per centof all the children reportattending the motion-picturetheater on both Friday and Saturdayevenings. Anotherfact of interestin regardto these tablesis thelarge number of bothboys and girlswho go up town on Saturdayevening. Of the girlswho thus reported8 per cent gave no particularreason fortheir action, merely making such generalstatements as, "Aftersupper I went up town" or "On Saturdaynight I wentup town,"or as one girlof fourteenput it, " On Saturdaynight I wentup townfor awhile and thenI wentto OlentangyPark and danced till ten o'clock." Two main factors are conduciveto thisgoing-up-town habit; first,the proximityof the neighborhoodto the centerof the city,and second,the indi- vidualismof themodern family which finds its extremeexpression in suchneighborhoods as this. The schooland recreation.-Thereare threepublic schools in the district,two elementary and one intermediate,having an aggregate daily attendance,in I9I9, of I,644 pupils. The two elementary schools,Fieser and Franklinton,which include Grades I to VI,

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE 603 drawall theirpupils from the immediateneighborhood covered by our survey. The districtof the Avondaleintermediate school, however,extends considerably farther west; about two-thirds of the pupilsattending come from the Hilltopor adjoiningterritory. The FieserSchool, located at the cornerof State and Starling streets,is in the midstof the mostbroken-down area on the west side. It has an average daily attendanceof approximately450 childrenranging in ages fromsix to twelveyears. The building is old and veryill-adapted to the servicewhich a school should performin moderncommunity life. It is heated by hot air and has no ventilationsystem other than the windowsand doors. Moreoverit containsno artificiallighting system of any sort. Not onlyis thisa tremendoushandicap to thegeneral work of the day schoolbut it makesit impossibleto use the buildingat nightfor neighborhoodmeetings. The FieserSchool has a totalplay space of approximately 23,000 square feetwhich is dividedby outbuildingsinto threedifferent areas. Consideringthat there are about 450 pupilsattending the school,this makes an averageplay space of about 50 square feet per child. TakingI45 squarefeet per child,the minimum amount ofspace agreedupon by expertsas necessaryfor circle games, it is obviousthat Fieser School falls far below this standard. The FranklintonElementary School, located at the cornerof Broad and Sanduskystreets, has an enrolmentthis year(I9I9) of 550 pupils. Thereis a totalground space at thisschool of approxi- matelyio,ooo square feetwhich is dividedinto two long,narrow strips,one about i8 feetwide used by theboys, the other15 feet wide comprisingthe girls'playground. It is apparentthat these stripsare entirelyinadequate for any sortof groupgames. They do not evenafford room for slides, teeters, etc., nor is therespace adequatefor the playingof basket-ball. The schoolhas no gym- nasium; one roomin thebasement might be used forthis purpose ifit wereproperly floored and ventilated. The AvondaleIntermediate School, located on the cornerof Avondaleand Townstreets, has an enrolmentof about 600 pupils. It has a play space of approximately40,000 square feetwhich gives considerablymore room per childthan is providedat the Frank-

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 604 THE AMERICAN JOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY lintonSchool. Thereis no outdoorplayground equipment but the principalexpects to start basket-balland indoorbaseball soon. Thereis no gymnasiumin the school. In additionto the fact that the schoolsof the neighborhood affordbut littleopportunity for healthful play we mustnote that thedistrict facilities for outdoor recreation are also muchbelow the averagefor the city as a whole. The housesand apartmentsof the neighborhood,with very few exceptions, are builtclose up to the sidewalksleaving no lawn or play spaces. Further,the backyards

0 ~~~~~~"

Jt,-& =VocontSpacesVACANT~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CTY OF COLUMBUS, SPACESO IO

MAP XII are smalland, for the most part, filled up withold shacksand weeds makingthem inaccessiblefor play purposes. These statements applyparticularly to the easternhalf of the district,especially to the sectionbetween Grubb Street and the river. On theaccompanying map (XII) ofthe neighborhoodwe have shownall the available open spaces whichare largeenough for children'sgames. It willbe notedthat east of McDowell Street there is nota singlevacant lot upon whichthe childrenmay play, and it mayalso be said ofthis region that there is scarcelya singlelawn or patchof grass big enough for the simplest games of even the smallest

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children. It is a commonsight during any afternoonor evening to see dozensof littlechildren in thissection of the neighborhood huddledtogether in somegrimy alley or chasingone another around a telephonepole on the streetcorner-human nature, both meta- phoricallyand literally,being torn around by the hairof thehead.

XI. EDUCATION AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY For a general conceptionof the educationalstatus of this neighborhoodthe readeris referredto Table XXIV.' TABLE XXIV PERCENTAGE OF NON-SCHOOL ATTENDANCE BY WARDS OF CHILDREN 6 TO 20 YEARS OF AGE

No. No. Not At- PercentageNot Ward Attending tending Attending

8 ...... 676 4 o.6 I6 ...... 2,945 25I 7.8 5 ...... 2,945 402 I2.0 7...... I7I8 325 I5.8 6 ...... I,394 478 I6.6 15...... I,668 357 I7.6 14...... I,588 374 I9. I 4 ...... 2,096 5I9 I9 .8 I2 ...... 8I2 202 I9.9 II ...... 3,032 76I 20.1 I ...... 2,634 704 2I. I 10 ...... 2,088 704 25.2 3 ...... 2,974 I,I25 27.4 13 ...... 21299 2,705 32.4 2 ...... I528, 963 38.7 9 ...... 742 1 586 44.I

Recallingthat our neighborhoodis locatedin Wards9 and Io, it is evidentthat a relativelylarge percentage of its youngpeople are not attendingschool. Ward 9 standsat the bottomof the list with44.1 per centof the age groupin questionnot attending school. Ward io occupiesthe fifthplace fromthe bottom, with a percentageof non-school attendance of 25.2. Thereis no wayof finding out whatproportion of the non-school attendanceof each ward fallsin the loweryears of the age group. Obviously,however, the largestpart of it is made up of children over fourteenyears of age. The differentpercentages just fidi- I These figuresare taken fromthe unpublishedrecords of the Columbus Board of Education, I9I8.

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cated may be taken,therefore, as a roughmeasure of the extent to whichthe youngpeople of the variouswards of the citygo to highschool or college. Ward 8 mightbe omittedfrom the list inasmuchas it comprisesthe centralbusiness section of the city and has but fewchildren resident in it. Moreover,Wards 2, 3, and 13 withtheir relatively poor showingshould be studiedin connectionwith Map It whichshows the distributionof national and racialgroups within the city. It willbe observedthat these are areas in whichreside large negro and foreignelements. No attemptwas made to obtain informationrelative to the questionof retardationof thechildren of the schoolsin the neighborhood. But in a recentstudy, made by the departmentof psychologyof the state university,the childrenof Fieser School wererated as mentallytwo yearsbelow the averagefor children of the same age in a schoollocated in one of the highereconomic areas ofthe city.2 Fieser School.-The two elementaryschools, Fieser and Frank- linton,are bothvery much overcrowded. The FieserSchool tries to obviate this conditionby dividingits elementaryclasses into two sections,one attendingfrom 8 to 11.30 A.M., and the other from12:30 to 3 P.M. The schoolhas an open-windowor "fresh- air" class whichon the date of inspectionhad an enrolmentof eighteenpupils. These pupilsattend school from 8 A.M. to 3 P.M. and areserved their noonday meal by theschool under the direction ofDr. Lenhart,the physician in charge. Pennylunches are served at the Fieser School at 10 A.M. daily. The principalstates that about 25 per cent of the childrenpatronize these lunches, which consistof a glass of wholemilk and some grahamcrackers. The schoolalso conductsa specialclass for retarded children. Thisclass has an enrolmentof sixteen children, most of whomare colored.3 Juveniledelinquency.-The readeris referredto Map VI fora generalidea ofthe territorialdistribution of the "official"cases of juveniledelinquency for a singleyear period, I9I8-I9. The follow-

I See AmericanJournal of Sociology, XXVII (September,I92I), I47. 2 J.W. Bridgesand Lillian Coler, "The Relationof Intelligence to SocialStatus," PsychologyReview, XXIV (January,I9I7), p. 22. 3See AmericanJournal Sociology, XXVII (September,I921), i66.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:18 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE 607 ing map of the neighborhoodshows the local distributionof delinquency in greaterdetail. Of the 52I cases of juvenile delinquency indicated on the map of the city, 36 fall withinthe confinesof the neighborhood. While this is a larger pro rata percentage than for

\~~~ ~ ~ \~~~5NSVS'~~~~CiTY OF COLUMBUS, OHIO ~~~~~ ~~~MAP ~ ~~~~~ OF \\S > NEIGHBORHOOD SURVEYED LEGENDDENQ NC *S of 36 Delinquerlfs D EL IN QU E NCY X- -Home-sSteetSteom C., Lnes Rilrvas5.0 0 ?5g01? S0 2000 2500

MAP XIII the city as a whole, still the neighborhoodshows up favorablywhen compared with some of the otherlocal divisions of the city.

XII. NEIGHBORHOOD SENTIMENT In thecourse of timeevery section and quarterof a citytakes on some- thingof thecharacter and qualityof its inhabitants.Each separatepart of the cityis inevitablystained with the peculiar sentiments of its population. The effectof this is to convertwhat was at firsta meregeographical expression intoa neighborhood,that is to say,a localitywith sentiments, traditions, and a historyof its own.' Attachmentto locality is probably the best criterionof positive neighborhoodsentiment. There is a tendencyon the part of most people afterliving for a timein a certain spot or locality to become so psychologicallyadjusted to their physical and social surroundings that they experiencea feelingof discomfortand dissatisfaction when transferredto a new environment. We are all familiarwith ' Park, op. cit.,p. 579.

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the homesicknessof the youngperson on the event of his first departurefrom his nativevillage and his longingto returnat the firstopportunity to what he considersto be "the best spot on earth." In the city environmentneighborhood sentiment, or attachmentto locality,has becomelargely dissipated owing to the transitorynature of residenceand the absenceof home ownership. But varioussections of citylife differ remarkably in regardto the extentof local feelingand neighborhoodpride exhibited. In some localitieswithin the city, neighborhoodsentiment is a negative factor,expressing itself in termsof disapprovaland repulsionwith regardto local surroundings,while in otherareas the opposite sentimentsprevail, those of local prideand loyalty. Fromthe standpointof neighborhoodorganization it is important to know the generalattitudes of the people towardtheir physical and social surroundings.Where there exists general satisfactionwith respect to localityit is possibleto enlistinterest in neighborhoodup-building. But if the oppositesentiments prevail, thoseof dissatisfactionand disapproval,it is not likelythat muchheadway can be madein buildingup interestin neighborhood institutions. An attemptwas madein oursurvey to obtainfrom every household the prevailingattitude toward the neighborhoodand the peopleliving round about. Directquestions were avoided, but in the courseof conversationthe visitorrecorded significant state- mentsmade by theinformant pertaining to thephysical and social surroundings.Obviously it is impracticableto attemptto classify thegreat variety of remarks quoted by theinvestigators. We have selectedalmost at random,therefore, two streets, one from the easternhalf of the neighborhoodand one fromthe westernhalf. The schedulesare takenin orderfor these two streets and thesentiments expressedin thewords of theinformant are recordedwithout selec- tionor discrimination.Street A lieswest of Sandusky Street where over 50 per cent of the residentsown theirhomes. StreetB, on theother hand, is locatedin the morebroken-down region near the easternend of theneighborhood where less than25 per centof the residentsown their homes.

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The followinglists give the direct expressionsof neighborhood sentimentfor the two streetsin question:

STREET A We like the neighborhoodvery much. Perfectlysatisfied, afraid I'll have to get out now because of property exchangesand I'm verysorry I have to leave. Like it prettywell-very nice neighbors. Verygood dear neighbors,no timefor visiting. Like it verymuch, not uppishbut veryfriendly. Fine neighborhood,couldn't be betterfor us. Verypleasant neighborhood. Neighborhoodseems attractive. Satisfiedwith neighborhood, and like my neighborsvery much. Satisfiedwith neighborhood. I like neighborhoodvery much, prefer it to any otherI knowof. Pleasant people but not well acquaintedwith them. I like it, all good friendsin neighborhood. Grandneighborhood, people veryfriendly but I do not visitmuch. Don't have timefor visiting. Like my neighborsvery much. Verynice neighborsand neighborhood. Don't visit back and forthvery much but all good friends. Gotright kind of neighbors, just like one family in helpingeach other. Neighborhoodcouldn't be better. There neverwas a betterset of neighbors,all willingto help each other. Verymuch attached to thisneighborhood. There is a great deal of good spiritand friendlinessin our neighborhood. Splendidneighborhood, I like my neighbors,but do not visit with them a greatdeal. Perfectlysatisfied with the neighborhood;neighbors are all nice friendly people. STREET B Neighborhoodjust average,people strangeand quarrela lot. I don't likeit and don'tmix with the neighbors but have to stay on account of my boy. Rough district,I don't speak to the neighbors,they swear and drinktoo much. They are jealous of us. Would like to move out east again. Like West Side but not thisstreet, no freedom,I hate Mrs. K. Don't like neighbors,they are hard to get along with,fussy, so I stay to myselfand bothernone of them.

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Don't like neighborhood,want to move away, too many low characters. My husbandlikes East Side betterbut willstay herethough with me. Don't go out muchhere, don't like my neighbors. I like the neighborhoodand have good neighbors. Neighborhoodfine, don't have muchtime to visitneighbors. I like thefew neighbors I know. Like the neighborhood. No hard feelingsamong neighbors. Don't like it but have to put up withit. Like WestSide but not thisstreet, every one getsalong fine but Mrs. Like it verywell, have good neighbors. Don't like it here,don't speak to the neighbors. Not well acquainted,don't go any place. Like the neighborhoodvery well. I like the one neighborthat I knowall right. I like Rich Streetbetter, people herethink they're better than I am. I knowall the neighborsbut don't botherwith them at all. Haven't been herelong but like the neighborsso far. We speak to each otherbut don't visitat all. It is obvious that the term" neighborhood" in these expressions is used in the restrictedsense as implying,for the mostpart, the streeton whichthe familyresides, or at mostnot morethan the immediatelyadjacent streets. Andthe " neighbors" are thepeople livingon thesame street with perhaps the families on thestreet in therear whose back doorsare adjacent. Thereis a strikingdifference in the warmthof the sentiments exhibitedin thesetwo lists. StreetA is a streetof neighbors;a streetof wholesomecommon folk who have lived long in close proximityand have developedsentiments of loyaltyand attachmentto theirlocal environment.Street B, on the otherhand, withthe exceptionof a fewfamilies in the middlewhich form, as onemight say, a " warmspot " ofneighborly association, represents theresult of a forcedselection. That is whereeconomic necessity compelspeople of unlikeattitudes and culturaltastes to live in close proximityto one another. In such regionsthere can be no positiveneighborhood sentiment; hatred and avoidance prevail untilopportunity arises for moving on.

[To be continued]

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The Neighborhood: A Study of Local Life in the City of Columbus, Ohio--Concluded Author(s): R. D. McKenzie Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 6 (May, 1922), pp. 780-799 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2764178 . Accessed: 20/05/2014 12:45

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R. D. McKENZIE Universityof Washington

ABSTRACT Oursystem of government is based upon the assumption of the territorial group as a unit. Modernmeans of communicationand transportationhave to a con- siderableextent nullified the significanceof spatialproximity as a groupbond. All thetraditional forms of political and socialorganization are affectedthereby. Wards and administrativedistricts of cities as a rulehave no correlationwith natural group- ingsof population. Thus the influence of local opinion in socialcontrol is minimized. Citypopulations tend to segregateinto territorial publics having similar attitudes on questionspertaining to themores. Suchsimilarity of attitude is notso pronounced on economicquestions. Rehabilitationof neighborhoodsentiment in a cityis a difficultproblem. Anything that tends to stabilizeresidence and give to theneighbor- hooda unitarycharacter may serve to developneighborhood consciousness.

PART III. SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD

XIII. THE NEIGHBORHOOD AS THE UNIT OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL REFORM Our entiresystem of government,municipal, state, and national, is based on the assumptionof the locality group as the unit of representationand administration. This, of course, is an inheritance fromearlier times when geographicalproximity was the one funda- mental basis of group life. But modern means of communication and transportationtogether with the recent development of large interest groups whose common interest transcends geographical boundaries have undeimined the foundations of our political system and have complicated all our problems of social reform. This is especially true with referenceto affairsof administrationin our large cities, where the dominant interestgroups prevail and wherelife forthe majorityis precariousand transitory. Localitiesdo not standfor special interests, being areas of community whichcircumscribe only a verylimited and, with the extension of community, lessand less definiteexclusiveness of social type and interest.It is in very greatmeasure the mereconvenience of contiguityrather than the intrinsic 780

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE 781 distinctivenessof local interestswhich makes the localityan effectivesocial unit. But in the centralassociation that convenienceno longercounts, and here organizationby local divisionsis, exceptunder special circumstances,a mereimpediment to theactivity of theassociation. The case ofrepresentative governmenthas interestin thisconnection. Whilethe unit of election remains locality,the divisionof interestwithin the centrallegislature scarcely ever followsthe lines of locality. Consequentlyit becomesvery difficult to attain any formof true representationon the basis of local election. Members ostensiblyelected to representa locality,often in factrepresent, though inade- quately on account of the mode of election,not merelythe broad policyof a party,but the special interestof some association,some tradeor professionor churchor othergrouping. This cross representationis creatingone of the mostdifficult problems within the sphereof politicalscience.' In general the criticismsof our city government,as far as they pertain to the neighborhood,may be divided into two classes. First, the excessive localism revealed by some of the more stable and strongercity neighborhoodstends to exploitthe largerinterests of the city in general. This type of situationis illustratedin the followingquotation fromthe PittsburghSurvey. It is not suprising,therefore, that Pittsburghearly became a hotbed of pettypolitics. As in othercities councilmenchosen by wardsthrove through cateringto local needs whileindifferent or negligentto the weightierinterests of the cityas a whole. Thus, wholesections of well-pavedstreets might mark thebailiwick of some aggressive ward councilman, who none the less had a hand in givingthese same streetsalong with the main thorofaresof Pittsburgh,in perpetuityto the streetcar monopoly. Hence the saying: "Any ward can be boughtfor a newside walkor a pair ofwooden stairs." Local benefitnaturally became the test of dischargeof officialduty, the streetpaving schedule,the pork barrel of the city budget... . Even justice has been so diverse an interestthat each wardchooses its own local magistrate,before whom, none the less, may be broughta case fromanywhere in the city. The only concernof an aldermanis to please his "constits"; let him "soak" the fellowoutside his districtand his re-electionwas secure.2 On the otherhand, the utterlack of neighborhoodsentiment, so commonin many sections of our large cities,provides a fruitful fieldfor the establishment of our notoriousboss systemof government. The boss seizesupon the opportunity to act thepart of the good neighboramong an elementof thepopulation whose precari- I R. M. Maciver,Communsty (I917), p. 258. 2PittsburghSurvey, I, 45-46.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 782 THE AMERICAN JOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY ous conditionsof lifeemphasize the value of the kindly,personal, neighborlyrelations, but at the same time create indifference towardthe more generalinterests of the neighborhoodor communityas a whole. A successfulward boss mustbe a worker,capable by his exampleof inspir- ing othersto similarindustry. He must not be contentwith doing the work thatcomes to him, he mustlook forthings to do. As his workconsists mainly in doing favorsfor voters,he must inspire requestsas well as grant them. Thereforehe encouragesvoters to come to him forhelp when theyare out of workor in any othersort of trouble. When a voteris arrested,the ward or districtleader will lend his servicesto securebail or to providecounsel, or will arrangeto have theoffender's fine paid forhim. Then thereare theday-to-day favorswhich the local boss standsready to do forall whocome to him,provided theyare votersor can influencevoters. These servicescannot be even recapit- ulated here,for their name is legion. To one he lends moneyto stall a land- lord whose patience is exhausted; to a familyof another he sends fuel or provisionsin timeof need. "He buys medicinefor the sick and helps to bury the dead. He dispensesan ample hospitalityin the saloons; as soon as he comes in, knownand unknown,gather about him, and he treatseverybody. He is theonly one who does not drink,for he is on duty." Tested by his acts, the boss is chiefamong neighborhood philanthropists; judged by the motives thatprompt his acts,he is a serpentspreading the slime of political debauchery over wholesections of the community. With the submergedtenth (it would be more accuratelytermed the submergedhalf) of a greatcity's population, however,it is the acts and not the motivesof the man that weigh.' Studentsof municipalaffairs disagree concerning plans forthe reconstructionof citygovernment. Some authorities,recognizing the presentdisorganized state of the cityneighborhood, advocate the selectionof representativesat largewithout respect to neighborhoodor vocationalinterests;2 others would even go so faras to abolishentirely the geographical unit of representationand substi- tute forit representationon the basis of vocationalor interest groups;3 whileothers again, realizing the importanceof neighborhood sentimentas a civicforce, would attempt to rehabilitateand revivifythe neighborhoodmaking it functiononce more as a

I Munro, Tke Governmentof AmericanCities, pp. I75-76. 2 This is the positiontaken by exponentsof commissiongovernment. Cf. E. S. Bradford,Commission Governiment in Amnerican Cities (19iI), p. 305. 3 For a concise statementof the views of the "Political Pluralists" see M. P. Follett, The New State (I920), chap. xxviii.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TEHE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE 783 community institution.' There is general agreement, however, that our presentward systemof representationis a failure. The ward counciUorrepresents his own ward,and that alone. He forgets that the cityis morethan the sum of its wards,and that thepublic opiniolnof the city may be differentfrom the totalityof neighborhoodclamors. Ward divisionsare at best ephemeral:unlike the French arrondissement, the American ward has rarelyany traditionsand as a unit of area exacts no spontaneous loyaltyfrom the people who live in it. What passes forward loyaltyis, more commonlythan not, local prejudicefostered by politiciansto serve theirown personal ends. Moreover, the concentrationof single ethnic elements in particularsections of the citymakes it practicaflycertain that, under the ward system,some membersof the council wiU owe theirelection to nothingbut theirproficiency in appealing to racial or religiousor social narrowness. The ward systemlikewise affords a standingincentive to that mostvicious of all Americancontributions to the science of practicalpolitics, the gerrymander; it makespossible the controlof a majorityin the councilby a minorityof the city'svoters, and, unlessredistricting is resortedto frequently,it fostersgross inequalitiesin representation.The term"ward" has accordinglycome into disreputein the terminologyof Americangovernment, a somewhatcurious fact,by theway, since in England,where councillors are and alwayshave been chosen fromwards, no such odium has been developed. Its presencehere is doubtlessexplained by the fact that in Americanward representation,ward po]itics,and ward organizationhave come to be associatedin the public mind withbossism, trickery, and almosteverything else thatis politicallydemoraliz- ing. A feelingso deeply lodged can scarcelybe withoutsome substantial foundation.2 Although the territorialunit of representationis tending to become a thing of the past in American city government,yet the unitfor administrative purposes still remains the geographical area. Citiesare districtedinto a largenumber of local unitsto meetthe

' M. P. Follett is one of the best-knownadvocates of the rehabilitationof the neighborhoodas a political and social unit. The thesisof her recentbook, The New State,is thatintelligent participation in social controlcan be achieved onlythrough the conscious reconstructionand federationof such small territorialgroups as the neighborhood. As a unit of social reform,the neighborhoodhas receivedthe attentionof social workersfor several decades. The social settlementmovement represents the first attempt to institutionalizethe social activities of the neighborhood. The present trend of this movementis evidencedin the increasingpopularity of the social center activities,community councils, and, in a still more comprehensiveway, in the social Unit Plan of Cincinnati. 2 Munro,The Government ofAmerican Cities, pp. I9I-92.

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administrativeproblems of thevarious departments of city government. Each departmentsubdivides the city into geographical unitsadjusted to suitits peculiaradministrative purposes without respectto the naturalgroupings of population,and withoutcon- siderationof the geographicalsubdivisions made by other departmentsof citygovernment. Attentionhas been called to the fact that one of the thingswhich make citygovernment inherently difficult, is the lack of neighborhoodfeeling which seemsinvariably to be producedby citylife. If each branchof the citygovernment,and each city executivedepartment, forms districts to suit its own con- veniencemerely, it is almost a certaintythat therewill be almost as many seriesof differentdistricts as thereare branchesof city governmentand city executivedepartments. The resultis thatsuch a neighborhoodfeeling as may existis disintegrated,and thatit becomesimpossible, so longas thisadministra- tive diversitycontinues, for such a neighborhoodfeeling to develop. If, on theother hand, care weretaken to make the electiondistricts the same as the judicial districtsand to cause theseto conform,in someway, to the police,fire, and otherdistricts; if the districtcourt-house, the fire engine-house, the police station-house,and eventhe school-house in givenparts of the city were situated, fromthe point of view of citygeography, near each other-placed perhapsin or arounda small playgroundor park,-it would be possible to develop civic centerswhich would tend to encouragethe development of neighborhood spirit. It is quite true that the convenienceof the departmentsmight be interfered with,but theloss sufferedby thedepartments would be morethan compensated forby the developmentof neighborhoodspirit, and in manyinstances as well by the greaterconvenience of the citizenwho wouldfind that his businesswith thecity government could be conductedwith greater ease thanunder conditions wherethe citydistricts bore no relationto each other. Underthe plan which has been outlined,of course the districtswould be more permanentthan at present,while the civic centerswhich might develop would, of necessity,be absolutelypermanent. The changes of population which are going on so continuouslyin the citywould make the problemof districtrepresentation a differentone fromwhat it is where the districtsare not permanentbut are changedto suit the changesof population. The problemwould not, however, be one of great difficulty,for, instead of establishingsingle districtsas at present,it wouldbe possibleto make provisionfor districts whose representa- tionwould vary withtheir population. The plan whichhas been outlinedis one whichto a largedegree has been adoptedin Paris. Paris is divided into twentydistricts, each of whichhas a civiccenter-the mairie-at whichare foundthe officeof themaire, in thiscase a districtand not a cityofficer-generally a citylibrary, and the local officeof

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the charitiesdepartment. The mairieitself is usuallysituated in a smallopen space or park. The twentydistricts, in additionto being thusadministrative districts,are also electionand judicial districts. In this case, notwithstanding theirdifferences in population,they are equallyrepresented on the citycouncil. So far,however, in the United States littleattention seems to have been given by the city governmentsto this importantmatter, and the convenience of the administrativedepartments alone has been considered. The resultis that an opportunityhas not been availed of eitherto preserveor to develop neighborhoodfeeling, or to securean architecturaleffect which would render citylife much more attractive than it is at present.' If the neighborhoodis ever to be organizedas a politicalor social unit,it is of the utmostimportance that the formalsuper- structureshall be made to coincideas nearlyas possiblewith the naturalneighborhood groupings of thepopulation. It is a remarkable fact that the most prominentadvocates of neighborhood reconstructionhave failedto take cognizanceof thisnecessity. It is surelyapparent that any effective system of community planning musttake accountof the divergentattitudes of the variouscom- munitygroups; and thisis just as importantwith respect to the localitygroups as it is withrespect to the tradeunion or chamber of commerce. It is, ofcourse, not always an easyproblem to locatethe boundariesof natural neighborhood groups. Frequentlyone neighborhood blendsinto another without any objective signs of demarcation. On theother hand, areas of similarobjective characteristics may be in- habitatedby familygroups whose interests and attitudesare entirely irreconcilable. I shallnow present the results of an attemptto studyneighbor- hoodgroup attitudes in the cityof Columbus. My studyis based on data obtainedfrom the records of theBoard ofElections. The geographicalunits for the collectingand recordingof data on all subjectson whichthe city'selectorate votes are theprecincts and wards. Columbusis dividedinto sixteenwards having a totalof 262 precincts. The precinctis quite small,including but one or two cityblocks and havingan averageregistered electorate of less thantwo hundred.

I Frank J. Goodnow,City Government in the UnitedStates (Igo6), pp. 20I-3.

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I shall attemptto discoverthe territorialdistribution of the votingpublic' son a numberof issueswhich have comebefore the electorateduring the past fewyears. Municipalquestions divide thevoting public into two groups-those in favor and thoseopposed. Aftera campaignwhich varies in intensityaccording to thenature of theissue, a vote is takenand the resultapparently accepted by both sides. The geographicaldistribution of the losingminority seemsof littleconsequence. Fromthe standpointof law enforce- ment,however, it becomesa verysignificant matter whether one city neighborhoodhas imposedits will on a numericallysmaller neighborhoodentirely out of sympathywith the decision. With- out thesupport of thelocal opinionof the neighborhood it becomes extremelydifficult to enforcelegislative enactments. If, on the otherhand, the losingminority does not happento be segregated in particularneighborhoods, but is scatteredevenly throughout the city,the questionof law enforcementis of a muchmore simple nature. In orderto ascertainthe typesof municipal questions on which local segregationof voterstakes place, I have made a studyof the votingrecords on eightdifferent issues on whichthe electorateof Columbushave votedduring the past fewyears. The percentage of affirmativevotes on each of the eightmunicipal questions recordedin Table XXV has been determinedfor each ward. The resultsare comparedwith the percentageof the affirmativevotes on each issuefor the city as a whole. The deviationsof each ward fromthe city'saverage is thus taken as a measureof the ward segregationof voters on each question. This table shows very distinctlythat thereis much greater segregationof voterson subjectspertaining to themores, or social customs,than on subjectswhich deal witheconomic questions. In thefirst group of subjects, designated Class A, theward deviations fromthe city's average range from 6 to I2-a factwhich shows that thereis a verypronounced local bunchingof similarattitudes on

I Anyunorganized association of individuals bound together by common opinions, sentiments,or desiresand too numerousfor each to maintainpersonal relations with the others,constitutes a publicin the broadestsense of the term."-W. J. Shepard, "PublicOpinion," Amer. Jour. of Sociol., XV, 36.

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AVERAGE DEVIATIONS OF WARD VOTES FROM THE GENERAL AVERAGE FOR COLUMBUS

Wards Average - ______- _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ - _ _ _- ______- _ _ _ - _ _ _ D ev. Subject forAll S 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Io II I2 I3 I4 15 i6 Wards Class A: Prohibition(I9I7) ..... - 8.8 -30.9 -I7.8 -4.8 +Io.8 +5.I + .8 -I2.I -22.8 -7.7+I2.7 -I33? .3?+I.+24.I+24.3 I2.4 - Prohibition(I9I8)..... -II.4 -30.5 -i6.o -3-7 +I0.7 +6.2 -2.0 77 -23.0 -7.7 +I2.3 -I7.8- .9+ .7+23.6+22.3 I2.3 Poolroomordinance - (I9I7) .- 6.5- I5.3 9-.7 + .8 + 7.2 + .6-2.0 5.I -I0.6 -5.0 + 3.3 - 8.o-3.8+ .4+I3.2+II.3 6.4 Woman's suffrage (1917) - ...... - 6.9 -26.I -I2.3 -2.7 + 7.5 +4.0 -i.8 -io.8 -I9.2 -4.7 + 7.I -I4.I .6. +I9.9+20.9 .9 To prohibit employment of women in places where liquor is sold (I9I8).- 4.41-20.91-IOI +4.0 +I0 I |+7.3 +I?51- 4I -20.31-2.7? II.6 -II.2+2.7?+2.422.7+I8.9 9.7 Class B: City tax levy (I9I7)...- 7.3- 79- -I0.5 +2.5 + 4.6 + .8 +2.0 +2.7 + I.7? + .3- 4.0 + .5 -2.8 +3.0? +II 9 + 4.4 4.2 Citytaxlevy (I9I8).... - I.3 - 4.5- 5.9 +3.3 + 3.8 + .6 -I.5 + 5.7 + 4.7 + .3- 2.7 + 2.9 -3.7 +2.I + 5.0 + I.6 3.5 School bond issue(I9I7)- 4.7 - 5.2 - 7.8 -I.I - I.I +4-7 +3.2 + 2.8 + 9.6 -I.6- 2.7 + 4.6 + .8 +4.I + 5.7 + I.4 3.4 City school tax levy . - - (1918) .. - 73- 7.31- 8.o +2.I + 5-4 +1.6 -3.I + 2.7- .2 -I.4 3.2 .-2.6 +2.3? 9.4?+ 6.8 4.0

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thesequestions. WardsI5 and i6, whichshow the highest positive deviations,stand in strikingcontrast to Wards 2, 3, and 9, which showalmost as largenegative deviations from the averagefor the cityas a whole. Withrespect to the economicissues, grouped in Class B, theward deviations from the city's average are relatively slight. On no subjectis theaverage deviation for all thewards in Class B as greatas thatfound for any of the issues in Class A. The mostconspicuous bunching of oppositesis foundin Wards 3 and I5, especiallyon thecity tax levyissue of I9I7. Althoughsmall deviations are foundon the SchoolBond issue of 19I7, nevertheless,from the standpoint.ofcommunity interest and campaignenthusiasm, this was an unusuallyhotly contested localissue. The twopublics concerned, however, were geographically dispersedalmost uniformly over the entirecity. Athoughthe finalvote stood 9,738 for, to 22,9I8 against,not a singleprecinct in the cityvoted a majorityin favorof theproposed bond issue. There seems to be little correlationbetween high economic statusand thetendency to supportmeasures involving an increase in taxation. While Wards4 and 5 rankhighest in the citywith respectto economicstatus, still, on theaverage, they do notsupport economicmeasures as well as Ward 9 whichstands at the bottom of the economicscale forthe city. Furthermore,it is interesting to notethat the deviations of Wards I, 2, and 3, wardswhich comprisethe large German neighborhood, are negativeon all questions listedin our table; whilethe deviationsin Wards I4, I5, and I6 arepositive on all issues. Wards9 and io' havenegative deviations on all issues in Class A but tend to supporttaxation measures. Thismay be partiallyaccounted for by therelatively small number of largetaxpayers in thesewards. Let us now examinemore closely the territorialdistribution of thepublics supporting and opposingeach of theforegoing subjects groupedin Class A, as representingthe mores,that is, questions involvingconceptions of rightand wrong. Of coursethe wardis too largea geographicalunit to furnisha truepicture of thedetails oflocal sentimenton thesesubjects. Local groupsof diametrically oppositepoints of view are frequentlybunched together within the XThese wards embrace the disorganized neighborhood already studied.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE 789 same ward. The precinct,therefore, is a betterunit than the ward, to bring into reliefthe natural boundaries of the local group. In order to illustrate the various regional attitudes on questions pertainingto the mores I have prepared Maps XIV, XV, and XVI.

MAP OF COLUMBUS, OHIO N l SHOWING PERCENTAGESOF ELECTORSVOTING FOR OJentarngy _arkletoy PROH I BITION ARDI6 ~~1918

LEGEND~~~~~~~~~~~RDA?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

40 to50t1./

6O%and over: Scale of Miles

L Neighborhood i) SettlementHouse I 51 E I 2 l

MAP XIV

These maps are constructedon the basis of the votingprecinct and representthe percentageof electorsfor each precinctvoting affirma-

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 790 THE AMERICAN JOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY tively on the three subjects in question-prohibition, woman's suffrage,and the non-employmentof women in liquor shops. The similarityof shading of the various sections of the city in all threeof thesemaps is significant. The local areas that supported

] ~~~~~~~CO LUM B US, O HIOl N SHOWI NG

OlentanW PERCENTAGESOF ELECTORS VOTING FOR

60%and over Scale ofMiles

l g- Neighborhiood @SettlementHouse 9t f? 2

MAP XV prohibitioninvariably supported woman's suffrageto approximately the same degree. The areas surroundingthe central business section of the city stand out conspicuously as opposed to both

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE 79I prohibitionand woman'ssuffrage and in favorof the employment of womenin liquor shops; whilethe eastern,western, and northern extremitiesof the city-the threeleading residential areas-are

[ ~~~~~~~~MAP OF| ~ ~ 8 _ ~CO L UM B US O)HI O l

70 and over ScOle cOrfMiles E > Neighborhood ?OSettlement House I4, 4 FMA

MAPXVI strongsupporters of the firsttwo issuesand opposersof the third issue. In theprocess of the siftingand sortingof population within a city, thereis a tendencyfor people of similarmores to become

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groupedtogether in neighborhoodassociation.' And it is onlyin the decisionof questionsinvolving the moresthat the specific groupcharacter of theselocal areas comesinto prominence. The consistencyof attitudesdisplayed by the variouslocal regionson questionsdealing with the mores is remarkable.Not onlydid the Columbusvote on prohibitionfor consecutive years show almost preciselythe same results,as faras local segregationof opinionis concerned,but thevotes on theother subjects, more or lesskindred, show almost identicaldistribution of supportersand opposers. The ward distributionof opinionon a numberof such subjectsis graphicallyshown in GraphI. The pointsare arbitrarilyconnected to assistthe eye in following the ward fluctuationson thesesubjects. The correlationof ward opinionson these threesubjects is conspicious. Obviouslythe voterwho favored woman's suffrage voted also forprohibition, and forthe non-employment ofwomen in liquorshops. The lowerline graphicallyrepresenting the relativeeconomic status of the differentwards, bears an interestingsimilarity of fluctuationsto thoseof the linesillustrating ward opinionon the threesubjects in question. Wards4, 5, I5, and i6, whichstand highin economicstatus are thestrongest supporters of each of the three municipalissues; whileWard 9, which has the lowest economicrating, shows the lowest affirmative vote on these issues. The correlationof opinion on thesesubjects may be shownstill moreclearly by observingthe precinctdistribution of votes fora singleward. Thereare too manyprecincts to makeit practicable to showthis distribution for the entire city. But the distribution of opinionwithin one wardwill serve as an exampleof thegeneral Similarityof attitudes,however, is not in itselfa criterionof groupconsciousness. It is necessarythat the individualmembers of the groupshall be aware of the similarity of theirattitudes. Referringto the Polish peasant, Thomas and Znaniecki, say, "The mannerin whichsocial opinionholds the communitytogether is easily analyzed. Any extraordinaryoccurrence becomes fora certaintime the focusof attentionof all the membersof the community,an identical attitude toward this is developed, and each memberof the communityis consciousthat he sharesthe generalattitude or that his attitude is shared by the rest of the community. These are the three original elementsof the mechanismof social opinion: the phenomenon,the identityof attitude, and the consciousnessof this identity."-The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, It I45.

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Percentage of Affirmative GRAPH I Votes 8o

75- - - - -

70 ------____

6o N.~~~~~~I

35 - -A------30r2IO~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ rrrrt rrr I~~~7 0 ~ ~ ~~~~~~~\(

20 1 1 _ I I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Io II I2 I3 I4 I5 I 6 wards Ward Distributionof Votes - ~~~~Prohibition --- Woman'ssuffrage - - - ~Non-employmentofwomen in liquorshops

Dollars /

I50 _ T--t-T--- S' I

I30 - - - . | / l I

50 L tI I . I ]

I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Io II I2 I3 14 I5 I6 wards Economic Status of Wards NOTE.-Economic status is detem-iinedby dividing total tax returns,per ward, on householdfumniture by total numberof electorsper ward.

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tendency. Graph II indicatesthe percentageof votersin each precinctin Ward 3, who voted in favor of the three issues: woman'ssuffrage, prohibition, and thenon-employment of women in places whereliquor is sold. While the percentagesof affirmativevotes do not fluctuate similarlyin everycase stillit is veryplain that thereis a direct GRAPH II PrecinctDistribution of Votes on ThreeIssues-Ward 3 Prohibition - - - Woman's suffrage - - - Non-employmentof womenin liquorshops Percent- age of Precincts 'Affirma- tiveVotes B S P F E D C A I H G R K Q L 0 M N 70 -J

6o- 7i\/ 75~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I I E 50 - - - -JV -- - -

45 -

40-/

NOTE.-Precinctsare arranged geographically from west to east correlationof opinion on thesethree issues. Moreover,it is evident that thereis a decidedregional divergence of opinionwithin the boundariesof thisward. PrecinctsM, N, and 0, whichlie in the easternend of the ward,represent opposite attitudes to thoseof suchprecincts as B and S, whichoccupy the western section of the ward,bordering on SixthStreet. It is clearto everyonethat ward boundaries, as a rule,are purely artificial,and do not, therefore,represent the natural groupings of populationwithin a city. However,all wardsin Columbusare

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TABLE XXVI AVERAGEDEVIATIONS OF PRECINCTVOTES FROMTHE AVERAGESOF THE DIFFERENTWARDS

Wards Average Deviation Subjects forAll I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 II I2 13 14 I5 i6 Wards

I. Prohibition(I9I8) ...... 7.8 2.9 I2.7 7.7 5.4 6.9 6.7 6.9 6. 5 8.4 7. o 7. o 8.9 6.7 5.8 5.8 7.I 2. Woman's suffrage(I9I8) ...... 6 3 3.8 9.2 6.3 4.0 7.9 8. o 9.2 4. 7 6. 3 6. 5 5.8 6.9 6.8 6.3 6.3 6. 5 3. To prohibit employment of womenin places whereliquor is:sold...... 4 9 4.4 8.7 5.4 4.3 7.3 4.3 7.5 5.6 7.i 6.2 6.4 6.4 6.2 4.7 4.7 6.o 4. Governor(I9I8) ...... 4.7 4.o 6.3 6.4 5 .7 I4.9 I5.6 9.7 I2.2 4.8 7.4 I2. I 8.6 5.4 4.2 4.2 8. I

Averagefor each ward.. 5.9 3.8 9.2 6.4 4.9 9.2 8.6 8.3 7. 2 6.6 6.8 7.8 7.7 6.6 6.3 5.2 ......

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notequally artificial. Some show a muchgreater tendency toward homogeneityand coincidencewith naturallocal groupingsthan others. In orderto discoverthe comparativehomogeneity of the differentwards of ColumbusI have made a studyof theprecinct variationsof opinionfor each ward. The methodemployed was as follows;the totalpercentage of affirmativevotes im each ward on each of the foursubjects indicated on Table XXVI, was taken as the basis. Then the percentageof affirmativevotes on each subjectfor each precinctwithin the ward was comparedwith this, and the deviationsaveraged. Table XXVI givesthe resultof this tabulationfor all thewards of the city. A fewinteresting facts are revealedin thistable. In the first place it is quite clear that thereis considerabledifference in the extentof solidarity in thevarious wards of the city. Ward2 stands out conspicuouslyas distinctlythe most homogeneous ward. With its averagedeviation on all subjectsof but 3.8, it standsin striking contrastto its neighboringWard 3, whichhas an averagedeviation of9. 2; and to Ward6, whichhas an equallyhigh average. In fact Ward 2 consistentlyshows greater homogeneity on all issuesthan anyother ward in thecity, with the two slight exceptions of Wards 5 and 7, in itemthree, and in theseparticular cases the differences are extremelysmall. The precinctdeviations from the ward averagesfor Wards 2 and 3 are graphicallyrepresented in Graph MII. Withthe singleexception of PrecinctA, whichstands at the northeastcorner of the ward, there is extremelylittle geographical bunchingof votes in Ward 2. Ward 3, on the otherhand, shows the oppositetendency. Its precinctfluctuations vary fromI7 to 62 percent of the electors voting in favorof prohibition. The superiorhomogeneity of Ward 2 is due to thefact that this ward is inhabitatedalmost exclusivelyby a singlenationality, Germans. Ward 3, on the contrary,is composedof a numberof differentforeign groups in additionto a largeAmerican population.

A fewconclusions may be drawnfrom this study of local opinion. First,the population of a citytends to segregateitself into locality groupspossessing similar cultural and moralvalues; second,issues

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE 797 involvingeconomic expenditure reveal more reflection and personal choiceon the part of the voterthan do issues pertainingto the mores; third,the wardis nota unitof opinion on any issueexcept whereits boundarieshappen to coincidewith the naturalcultural and ethnicgroupings of the population. Those interestedin the rehabilitationof the cityneighborhood must,if they are to succeed,take intoconsideration the dominant

GRAPH III ComparativeHomogeneity of Wards2 and 3 As illustratedby precinctdistribution of affirmativevotes on theissue of prohibition,19I8 Percentage Ward2 of Wr Affirmative - - Ward 3 Votes 65 _ _

6o ------

45---- -

50 - C - - F - - -I K --L- IM- 30 ~ A 'I 25 % '0~~~~

,, 1% 20------I15~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I A B C D E F G H I1K L M N O P Q R S Precincts forcesat workstrengthening or disintegratingthe locality groups. An efficientscheme of neighborhoodreconstruction must take cognizanceof the naturalgroupings of thepopulation, and efforts must be made to stabilizesuch groupingsas far as possible by establishingcommunity safeguards against encroaching disturbing factors. On the otherhand, efforts must be made to giveto each neighborhooda physical unitary character sufficient to differentiate it fromsurrounding localities. This, of course,will involve a systematicscheme of city planning. The followingquotation

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 798 THE AMERICAN JOURNALOF SOCIOLOGY indicatesthat thissubject is alreadyreceiving consideration from expertson cityplanning: There is then a need today, fromthe standpointof city planning,for a standard political area correspondingto the city neighborhood-or if one answersthat thereare no such thingsas cityneighborhoods, then forthe city neighborhoodsthat ought to exist. A large city should be dividedinto local or neighborhoodgovernments, presumably elective, which should, under the citygovernment, have chargeof certain physical interests of the district. The desirabilityof having real city neighborhoodsmatching certain city planning needs-and, thoughmeeting these, realizing also certainspiritual ends-neigh- borhoodsdefined and vitalizedby thepossession accordingly of certaingovern- ing powers,is enforcedin manyways. It is emphasizedby themonotonous lack oflocal structuraldesign and thus ofefficient organic character in our outspreadcities, looked at as wholes. It is emphasizedby the strugglingefforts of groupsof personsin variouslocalities, throughlocal improvementclubs, to affecttheir local physicalconditions by theirjoint efforts,and by the factthat, as thingsare, a greatpart of thepeople feelhelpless or indifferentconcerning these matters. It is emphasizedby pro- jectswhich have beenmade by architectsand sociologiststo designfit groupings forlocal institutions,business, cultural and social, witha view for the better performanceof theirproper functions and a bettersymbolizing of the idea of neighborhoodsolidarity. It is emphasizedby the zealous and in many places locally rootedsocial centermovement, which has spreadso widelyduring the last fewyears. It is emphasizedby thedesire of finest elements of manyisolated nationality groups forbroad and inclusiveco-operation in theirdistricts toward social welfare, and by thespreading notion that common folk should be musteredinto thelife of the communityas theyhave not been heretofore.It is emphasizedby the recognizedneed for moderatingthe excessive and wastefulmobility of city populations,by givingmore meaning to localityand makingneighborhoods moreworthy of permanent residence. It is emphasizedby thefact that certain local interests,touching both the physicalfunctions and social aims of mod- em government,can be betterunderstood and administeredlocally than by the long range machineryof a city governmentcentering at city hail and coveringperhaps scores or hundredsof square miles. It is emphasized by the historicalfact that the finestarchitectural embodiments of human institutionsand ideals have forthe most part been wroughtout by communities of limitedsize, as ancientAthens and the cathedralcities of Europe amply testify. As to preciselywhat functionswould lend themselvesto efficientlocal management-possiblythe design,construction, maintenance and adornment oflocal streets,the removal of household waste, the provision of some recreation factors,especially for the smallest children, the receipt of taxes,the registration

This content downloaded from 198.30.40.143 on Tue, 20 May 2014 12:45:49 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL LIFE 799 ofvital statistics, the development of an architecturalscheme for a realneigh- borhoodcenter-whether these are some of the functionswhich might be consideredas appropriatefor local management, is a questionupon which I do notwish now to enter. Norneed we now discuss whether this primary govern- ing area should compriseone square mile or ten, io,ooo people or ioo,ooo. Caseswould be decidedaccording to circumstances.Just as localintelligence, pride,and initiative,however, are invaluable in smallercities for the purpose of government,just as thevalue of theseforces is indicatedby thatfear of losingthem which leads manyoutside communities to resistannexation to largercommunities-so, I believe, these forces will, when given fair opportunity, demonstratetheir value and efficiencytoward limited city neighborhood governmenton a well-consideredplan. I believethat the proper scope and objectsof cityplanning will be neitheradequately conceived nor adequately achievedexcept through the applicationto the largecity of some federal schemewhich will bring to bear thepotentialities of neighborhoodpolitical areasas suchfor their own higher physical organization.' Howevermuch we mayidealize the values of the social solidarity of the traditionalneighborhood and long for theirreturn, the fact remains that our social order has changed profoundlyfrom the organic life of the old hamlet or village societies. The seething movementsof population show no signs of abating. Community life is ever growingmore mobile and transitory. The demand for small homes or apartments,equipped with every possible built-in feature-ifnot completelyfurnished-is increasing. The modern familyis loathto assumeany responsibilitieswhich may interfere withits freedomto movewhen opportunity or occasionarises. It is all a phaseof the dynamic economic and socialorder in whichwe are nowliving. Withthe change undoubtedly we lose someof the valueswhich went with solidarity, but, on the otherhand, we gain much throughthe verylooseness of the presentsocial structure. Perhaps some of the neighborhoodvalues may be restoredby intelligentorganization, but thereseems to be littleground for beliefthat the dreamsof the moreextreme neighborhood promoters willever be realized.

x George E. Hooker, "City Planning and Political Areas," National Municipal Review,VI (May, I9I7), 34I-42.

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