BUILDING FOR SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY - Kennedy Bibliothek

neighborhoods there at all, at least not in the previously accepted sense
of a neighborhood. Until Swinbrook and Cedar Riverside it was thought
that a neighborhood was a physical place, a distinct fragment of the city,
a geographic entity the character of which could be defined within boundaries
or edges. Of course many neighborhoods actually are like this. But
what Swinbrook and Cedar Riverside both reveal is that neighborhoods -
whether they are physically distinctive or not - are not primarily places,
but people.
29. At Swinbrook, the Greater London Council, surprised at the reaction
of the "non-neighborhood" to the redevelopment plans, undertook a census
of 1 000 households. It discovered that the essence of Swinbrook is the
individual citizen and his networks, or the family unit and its networks.
In other words, instead of the static concept of identifiable place, you
have the dynamic of the social and cultural and physical ties of people to
neighbors, friends, relatives, public events, environments, vistas, shops,
the sounds of known voices, a special smell in the air, the private poetry
of place names... all of which are home turf. And a further point which
the Swinbrook census identified was that "home turf" was of even more vital
importance to the new immigrant who is in the process of putting down his
roots than to the long-term resident.(l)
30. It should be pointed out that the concept of neighborhood and the
concept of ethnicity do not necessarily coincide. In the United States
people speak, as they do in Europe, of the "Jewish community", and by that
they mean citizens who share common religions, racial and religious ties,
no matter where they live. Similarly in the United States, there are
large numbers of such ethnic communities and sub-cultures. Many are
highly organized, and through their traditions and festivals they contribute
a variety and richness to national life. Sometimes a neighborhood
may be predominantly or entirely ethnic. In several cities in the United
States there are Jewish, Polish, Italian or black neighborhoods, such as
Harlem in New York.
31. But most urban neighborhoods, whether they are in U.S. or European
cities, are not ethnic enclaves in this sense at all. Although Swinbrook
and Cedar Riverside are examples of new neighborhoods, or neighborhoods
whose self-image and identity are still in the making, their caracteristics
are no different from older urban neighborhoods. Their essence is not
the sameness or homogeneity of their population mix, but the opposite.
l) Redpath, op.cit.
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