Where do neighborhood effects end? Moving to multiscale spatial contextual effects
Abstract
There is no theoretical reason to assume that neighborhood effects operate at a constant single spatial scale across multiple urban settings or over different periods of time. Despite this, many studies use large, single-scale, predefined spatial units as proxies for neighborhoods. Recently, the use of bespoke neighborhoods has challenged the predominant approach to neighborhood as a single static unit. This article argues that we need to move away from neighborhood effects and study multiscale context effects. The article systematically examines how estimates of spatial contextual effects vary when altering the spatial scale of context, how this translates across urban space, and what the consequences are when using an inappropriate scale, in the absence of theory. Using individual-level geocoded data from The Netherlands, we created 101 bespoke areas around each individual. We ran 101 models of personal income to examine the effect of living in a low-income spatial context, focusing on four distinct regions. We found that contextual effects vary over both scales and urban settings, with the largest effects not necessarily present at the smallest spatial scale. Ultimately, the magnitude of contextual effects is determined by various spatial processes, along with the variability in urban structure. Therefore, using an inappropriate spatial scale can considerably bias (upward or downward) spatial context effects.
Citation
Petrović , A , van Ham , M & Manley , D J 2021 , ' Where do neighborhood effects end? Moving to multiscale spatial contextual effects ' , Annals of the American Association of Geographers , vol. Latest Articles . https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2021.1923455
Publication
Annals of the American Association of Geographers
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2469-4452Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Description
Funding: European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 615159 (ERC Consolidator Grant DEPRIVEDHOODS, Socio-spatial inequality, deprived neighbourhoods, and neighbourhood effects) and from the Marie Curie programme under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / Career Integration Grant n. PCIG10-GA-2011-303728 (CIG Grant NBHCHOICE, Neighbourhood choice, neighbourhood sorting, and neighbourhood effects).Collections
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