 Changing Neighborhoods—Neighborhoods ChangingDavid O'Sullivan
Sociological Methods & Research, 2009, vol. 37, issue 4, 498-530 Abstract: The nature of urban neighborhoods, neighborhood effects, and the dynamics of residential segregation are important themes in contemporary sociological inquiry. Agent-based models of social systems have been widely applied in this context. However, both applied and model-based research in these areas suffer from weaknesses in underlying conceptualizations and representations of spatial context. Drawing on human geography and the sociospatial perspective in urban sociology, a framework that enables richer and more realistic representation of urban neighborhoods in agent-based simulation models is proposed and outlined. The framework relies on a graph representation of the spatial relations among spatial locations and can accommodate welldefined administrative zones, vague or ill-defined neighborhoods, hierarchically nested spatial zoning systems, overlapping neighborhoods, and changing relations among neighborhoods. Results from a preliminary application of the framework demonstrate its utility and possibilities for research into the effects of neighborhood structure on social processes. Keywords: neighbourhoods; segregation; agent-based models; residential location (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:somere:v:37:y:2009:i:4:p:498-530 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Sociological Methods & Research |
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