Neighborhoods

I've been thinking a lot about neighborhoods since I got involved again with that Nextdoor web site. You'll recall Nextdoor creates not just neighborhoods, but an e-mail list for the people living in them to share information about....well.. whatever. Most seem interested in using it as a Neighborhood Watch type thing than anything else.

Back when I tried starting a neighborhood a few years ago, I just had mine extending a block or two on all sides of my house. I called it Trinity & E. I was told by Nextdoor it was too small so ended up extending it to, by coincidence, where my recent neighborhood proposal ends up.

Two problems now: We have two "Henderson Center" neighborhoods. One that actually contains Henderson Center, and ours that doesn't. I'm trying to change the name of ours to Henderson Center north, or something along that line. One Nextdoor member recommended having ours merge with the other HC neighborhood. Not sure if we'd be well served by something not so local.

Which got me to thinking about what makes a neighborhood and how people define their neighborhood? Here's the page that shows the current Nextdoor neighborhoods, assuming the link works if you're not a member.

The nearby neighbors I've spoken with feel an affinity to Henderson Center. After all, you can see the traffic lights on Henderson Street from out in front of my house. You can almost see Shafer's Hardware from D Street. It's like part of the neighborhood, but I never tell people I live in Henderson Center. I always say I live about seven blocks north of Henderson Center. Seems to me our neighborhood should be called North of Henderson Center, or Henderson Center North.

What about some of the current other Nextdoor neighborhoods? There's one called Stop and Shop. That's centered on the little market at Wabash & B streets. Except seems to me much of the area in the that neighborhood is far enough away from Stop & Shop that I doubt people living there tell others they live near Stop & Shop. 

In fact, Stop & Shop comes over all the way to across the street from my house. The neighborhood border goes right down the middle of E street. Doesn't really make sense and I'm sure nobody near me feels an affinity to Stop & Shop. 


Then there's the Eureka High School neighborhood. It goes from I street (no argument with that) on the west to S street on the east. Harris Street and 14th are the north/ south borders. I just don't see someone living near Harris and S streets feeling as they're part of the Eureka High neighborhood. 

Where do you live? I live over by the high school. Nope. In fact, most living to the north of Harris there would probably say they live near Sequoia Park.

I've been driving around the last few days looking at the neighborhoods, trying to figure out how to name them and where the boundaries should be. It's no easy task. Give it a try some time. As far as my neighborhood, though, I'm happy with Henderson Center North. I'm just not quite happy with the boundaries we've been given.

What would you call your neighborhood and how big should it be? Where would you place the boundaries?