I believe the AI Dictionary hits the nail on the head:
Quote:
Neighborhood
A group of complementary land uses; a congruous grouping of inhabitants, buildings, or business enterprises.
Notice I bolded the "s" in uses. There are multiple land uses in a neighborhood.
A subdivision really isn't a neighborhood as defined in the AI dictionary, because it has a singular use: Single Family (or condo if in a condo complex, etc...)
A neighborhood is the area you live, eat, work and play. That is why you live where you live. You don't JUST live there because you like your house. You could find a similar house nearly any where in your county, state or the whole country, but NOT a house like yours surrounded by the same shopping facilities, boutiques, your favorite restaurant, ocean view or local sports team.
It is all of these additional elements that cause neighborhoods to change:
The grocery stores get old, a business closes down, a new Home Depot or WalMart super center opens up 10 miles up the road, etc... When these changes occur, peoples motivation to live in an area change. It is the area that drives the market as much as the sticks and bricks of the house.
Also note the term "congruous" in the definition.
congruous - exhibiting harmony of parts; appropriate or fitting
That coal plant (or nuke plant) down the road is not necessarily part of a residential neighborhood as it generally is not harmonious, appropriate, or fitting with residential properties. It generally is with industrial (coal) or possibly agricultural (nuke). In general industrial areas are not congruous with SF residential, thus border areas tend to be commercial, high density residential, or other such more transitional usage and thus create separate potentially congruous neighborhoods that may overlap in areas.
That being said, and fully comprehending that in older, more established areas commercial or agricultural usage could well be congruous with SFR usage as well as 2FR and other forms of residential use there are also times when 2 different forms of the same usage are NOT congruous, which could be the result of new development creating a different H&BU for the area and thus disharmony as properties are converted from one form to another. For example, along lakefronts small cabins are often "teardowns" once the area hits a certain density of larger lakefront properties and a lack of other vacant parcels exist. As the H&BU is to remove the functionally inadequate property such properties are no longer in harmony with the rest of the neighborhood. Other examples are "eyesores" and such. Properties could start off in harmony but over time, style changes (particularly township determined) or due to neglect become incongruous and thus not part of the neighborhood based on the second part of the definition.
Food for thought
Proper neighborhood identification is more macro than many have been taught or lead to believe. This is the primary dysfunctional disconnect in this entire market trend analysis debacle. :new_smile-l:
I see neighborhood borders where there is sudden change. I can rattle off a number of these in SE WI (Milwaukee, Racine, etc) but a couple of the most pronounced are Rubberville in Racine (includes SF homes but is primarily SxS duplexes of a specific age and usually similar ownership characteristics), and the Lannon stone neighborhoods in Milwaukee near Capital Dr & Sherman Boulevard. In both cases the sudden changes typically create value changes that are not definable except by neighborhood change. There are generally border areas that overlap the two neighborhoods (ex: the Capitol Dr corridor is part of one on one side, part of another to the other, but is also uniquely its own neighborhood for properties located directly on Capitol Dr and comparables are within a block or two or on other major arterials).
Knowing the market areas helps greatly in identifying neighborhoods. In the case of Capital Dr one neighborhood could well include the south side of Capital and another could include the north side, including in both cases the commercial properties along that side, but for SFR on Capitol itself the neighborhood is different from either or the other two (slight overlap of both) no matter which side it is on.
So "neighborhood" could well be much larger, or in some cases much more specific, that what most appraisers would think of. The more complex the property the wider the area but potentially the more specific the definition depending on ow it is worded. For example, a bank can be part of a local neighborhood but it could also be apart from a local neighborhood depending on the need for a local bank in that area.
OK, figure I rambled enough
