While the concept that neighbourhoods like cities undergo processes of change is one that is of mutual understanding within both planning and urban form circles, the theories that inform this change have been debated for many years. Three schools of thought that have sought to unpack this issue include the Ecological Theory, the Sub-Cultural Theory as well as the Political Economic Perspective. These theories will be discussed in detail below.
3.1.1 The Ecological Theory
The first of these is the ecological perspective that is largely attributed to ecologists from Chicago’s school of sociology who believed that neighbourhood change was an inevitable natural process that was largely driven by structural economic and social forces (Pitkin, 2001). In essence, ecologists viewed neighbourhood residents as not having much of a choice or say in regard to matters concerning their areas but rather they were at the mercy
of greater ecological forces. There are different models that were developed under this school in a bid to explain the natural process of neighbourhood change. The most common of these was the concentric zone model that was largely built on the concept of invasion and succession taken from plant ecology and animal ecology (Schwirian, 1983).
Applied to the urban form debate, the invasion and succession concept saw neighbourhood change as being an inevitable outcome of a competition for space. Burgess’s concentric zone model portrayed the city as being made up of six concentric rings, with the innermost ring being the Central Business District (CBD), surrounded by the industrial sector, slum housing, working-class housing, higher-status dwellings and finally commuter housing (Pitkin, 2001). The model proposed that as the city experienced natural growth, each ring from the inside going out would place pressure on the ring outside of it to expand. In summary, the model suggested that neighbourhood decline was a result of the lower income groups slowly infiltrated more upmarket areas forcing the wealthier population to move even further from the CBD (Pitkin, 2001). Figure 7 below illustrates the Burgess model of city growth and expansion.
Figure 7: Burgess Concentric Zone
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/urban_environments/urban_models_
medcs_rev1.shtml)
Hoyt (1933) develops a similar model but explaining neighbourhood change as a phenomenon largely inspired by economic theory. Building on Burgess’s theory, Hoyt’s (ibid) argued that neighbourhood decline was indeed a natural process which was a result of property owners withdrawing their investments in aging properties and redirecting them to newer properties on the urban periphery. Using a similar concentric structure to Burgess, Hoyts attributes the outward expansion to a pull effect as compared to the push effect like Burgess (Pitkin, 2001). The need to consider other forces that influence neighbourhood change in Hoyts’ model such as the existence of mortgage credit and immigration, was identified by other ecological thinkers (Pitkin, 2001). This argument can be seen as having been what led to the emergence of the neighbourhood life cycle theory which also belongs to the Ecological School of thought.
The neighbourhood life cycle model established by Hoover and Vernon in 1959 proposes that cities go through a life cycle and the same applies to neighbourhoods (Schwirian, 1983). This life cycle is made up of the five stages that neighbourhoods are believed to ultimately experience.
Figure 8: Neighbourhood Life Cycle Stages
Source: Author, (adapted from Schwirian, 1983; 92)
The first of the stages experienced by the neighbourhood is the development stage. The model provides that, as the neighbourhood passes from one stage to another, it experiences various changes that may include variation in the status of the neighbourhood’s population composition, and racial and age composition. The intensity in which land and dwellings are being used, the population density, along with the quality and condition of housing within the neighbourhood, all have to be considered (Schwirian, 1983: 91).
While Hoover and Vernon propose five stages for the neighbourhood life cycle, they also point out that not all neighbourhoods experience all four stages proposed as part of the life-cycle theory. In some instances, a neighbourhood may fluctuate between two or three stages. There are multiple factors that can influence a neighbourhood’s movement through different stages of the cycle. These may include, the rate of growth of population and housing within the neighbourhood, the level to which residents can mobilize resources to resist change, the extent to which redevelopment projects are pursued in the neighbourhood and the changing level of accessibility of the neighbourhood to employment opportunities within the city (Schwirian, 1983). While one of the positives of this theory is the fact that much investigation that has been put into assessing change does show that neighbourhoods do undergo go change, the limitation is that most empirical tests of the life cycle have been largely only focused on change in status, on residential population density, and on neighborhood population size (Schwirian, 1983).
3.1.2 The Sub-Cultural Theory
The Sub-Cultural school of thought is arguably the biggest critic of the ecological perspectives of neighbourhood change. Contrary to ecological thinking, sub-culturists argue that neighbourhood decline is not a natural and inevitable phenomenon where residents are at the mercy of greater structural forces. Rather it is one that “in fact can be fought off by the strength of social networks in the neighbourhood that encourages neighbourhood organizers to mobilize residents to assert their interests” (Fisher, 1994 in Pitkin, 2001: 7). The sub-cultural theorists criticise the ecological perspective based on three main elements. The first of these is that the ecological perspective fails to consider some non-economic factors that also contribute to why and how residents may choose to reside in certain areas of the city (Firey, 1945). The main argument here is that although there is an economic influence on where people live, there is also a social aspect where residents develop sentimental attachments to their neighbourhoods. This attachment can be attributed to possible established social networks, memories, satisfaction and commitment to the neighbourhood community. These also have an influence on where people live or whether or not change occurs in a neighbourhood.
The second point of criticism addressed is the way in which ecological perspectives believed rational, economic choices related to the metropolitan real estate market were the driving force behind neighbourhood change.
Sub-culturalists argue that neighbourhoods could remain stable and possibly improve as long as their social structure was strong (Pitkin, 2001). Ahlbrandt and Cunningham (1979:29) support this notion by stating that neighbourhoods are made up of people and that it is the willingness of residents to remain in their current location and to work to improve it, which will determine the stability of the area.
The final criticism made by the sub-culturalists is that of the way in which the ecological perspective viewed neighbourhoods as being homogenous. In contrast to this, sub-culturalism introduces the idea that urban neighbourhoods are in actual fact heterogeneous and as a result of their findings it is believed that other sub- cultures have shown signs of being able to defend their neighbourhoods from outside threats (Pitkin, 2001). In essence the theorists believe that as much there may be various structuring forces that influence neighbourhood change, it is not always a given that neighbourhoods will give in to the forces of change. In fact the threat of change may be a catalysing factor that brings a fractured neighbourhood together in a common bond to oppose it.
3.1.3 The Political Economy
The political economy perspective is more similar to the ecological perspective in that both agree that neighbourhood change is driven by forces outside the control of the residents. However, while the ecological approach sees change as being a natural, inevitable process, the political economy acknowledges that it is not a natural force but rather a result of social, political and economic decisions that are made by the elite groups in the city to direct and control the growth of the city and its economy. Schwirian (1983:95) supports this point by saying that the city's growth is guided by a coalition of land interests that operate through “inter-organizational linkages in such a way that there is an uneven distribution across the city in the benefits of development and revitalization.” The fate of neighbourhoods is thus determined by the large institutions that operate within the city, such as banks and insurance companies, as well as the state or branches of the state through various taxes and interest rates.