Vertical Neighborhood
The phenomenon of vertical neighborhoods i.e. one single high rise houses so many people that it is a neighborhood on its own. With the ever-increasing number of high-rises, Vancouver Downtown has become more densely populated than Manhattan. I would like to see what kind of relation neighbors have in Vancouver Downtown, as most of the time in a high-rise a lot of people do not know their neighbors and what kind of social dynamics does it creates at micro and macro level (Micro level – community feel of a single high-rise and Macro level – community feel of the neighborhood). This is very basic topic as of yet, since it can branch off into lots of directions, any suggestions are more than welcome. I also have to find out how and where can I find information related to my topic, if anyone has any idea of sources that will be helpful in my research please do let me know.
The phenomenon of vertical neighborhoods i.e. one single high rise houses so many people that it is a neighborhood on its own. With the ever-increasing number of high-rises, Vancouver Downtown has become more densely populated than Manhattan. I would like to see what kind of relation neighbors have in Vancouver Downtown, as most of the time in a high-rise a lot of people do not know their neighbors and what kind of social dynamics does it creates at micro and macro level (Micro level – community feel of a single high-rise and Macro level – community feel of the neighborhood). This is very basic topic as of yet, since it can branch off into lots of directions, any suggestions are more than welcome. I also have to find out how and where can I find information related to my topic, if anyone has any idea of sources that will be helpful in my research please do let me know.
1 comment:
Hi Halima,
Your topic is really interesting to me. I have lots to say about it, although I don't know how relevant my experiences are to your topic. Here are some very different experiences I had with living in dense environments:
As a student in Montreal, I lived in an older part of town, in three-story walk-up row houses. The local residents were a mix of university students from out of town and older members of the Portugese community. There was a real sense of community there, complete with potlucks, movie nights, etc.
In Vancouver, my partner lived in a new high-rise in Coal Harbour. I don't think he met any of his neighbours in the nearly two years that he lived there. People in that building moved in and out often, and about half the units were always empty, owned by offshore investors.
Right now, I live in an apartment building with about 60 units near City Hall. There is a fairly high turnover of residents and no real sense of community. My only interaction with my closest neighbours have been through their noise complaints, which are delivered anonomously. =(
I suspect that to find a high-rise community in Vancouver, you might need to go to the older West End, where most of the high rises have been standing since the 1960's or 1970's. Communities would have had a chance to develop there, and densities are certainly high enough. A coworker who lived in that area once commented on the sense of community, and her familiarity with all her neighbours' different styles of cooking.
Now this isn't in Vancouver Downtown, but here's one more apartment living story. My parents live in a 17-story apartment building in West Vancouver. The sense of community in that place is unbelieveable. Most of the inhabitants are elderly, and they look out for one another, have weekly scrabble gatherings in the lounge, Christmas parties...
As for sources you might use, I really don't know. I think that you and I might be in the same boat with our topics, where the most locally appropriate source would be interviews with local people, and maybe community newsletters. You could go to the local community centre and swimming pool in the West End to see what community groups are represented there in terms of newsletters, fliers, etc. I do not know how appropriate it is to use this kind of informal source for a research paper. If you figure it out, please tell me! For an academic source, I know Jane Jacobs wrote extensively about her community in the Greenich Village in the late 1960's. Like my experience in Montreal, this was an older form of dense housing, not high-rises, but I think there are some parallels in the kinds of small-scale local community.
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