Neighborhood Strategy Definitions

The issues and conditions related to healthy, stable neighborhoods cross city geography, demographics, culture, and economics. Ask yourself who benefits from vital neighborhoods and the list is long: residents of all ages, property owners, developers, businesses, schools, governments... the list goes on and on.

Clear communication of goals and strategies is an important factor in the success of our efforts to build a community of choice. However, initiatives to address neighborhood and community health are often hindered because stakeholders fail to communicate effectively. Community organizers and leaders sometimes use a  "language" foreign to the target audience. Our challenge, then is to learn how to express ourselves in a clear and meaningful way.

The following definitions will provide help in addressing neighborhood concerns.

1. Asset Based Planning: A planning philosophy grounded in examining the positive attributes of a neighborhood and the resources available within and outside a neighborhood to bring about a desired outcome. Asset-based planning is also called "building from within" because it suggests the solutions to community problems and the resources to enact them are primarily present in the neighborhood.
   
   
2. Assessment Tools: Process or system used to classify the worth, perception, or effectiveness.
   
   
3. Goals: The purpose toward which an endeavor is directed.
   
   
4. Healthy Neighborhoods: A place where it makes economic and emotional sense for people to invest their time, money, and energy; and a place where neighbors successfully manage neighborhood related issues and neighborhood change.
   
   
5. Healthy Outcome Areas: Image, Market, Physical, and Neighborhood management.
   
   
6. Neighborhoods of Choice: Communities in which people can find a place where they may choose to both start and stay.
   
   
7. Neighborhood Management: The ability of a neighborhood to manage day-to-day concerns that arise; develop the social fabric to connect with neighbors; and work together to implement programs and projects that positively impact the image and the health of their neighborhood.
   
   
8. Neighborhood Revitalization: Efforts aimed at influencing future choices; building confidence and, thereby, influencing investment behaviors; using data to develop strategies that respond to the variety of needs and populations within an area; working with residents to discontinue negative perceptions and creating a vision and implementing activities that will achieve desired outcomes.
   
   
9. Neighborhood Plan: Method worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of goals.
   
   
10. Neighborhood Walk: Walking through a neighborhood to collect and analyze data, and talk with neighbors to determine what is working in the neighborhood and what is not working.
    
    
11. Neighbors: A person who lives in close proximity to you or within your defined neighborhood; a business; a non-profit agency, civic organization, or organized group that provides a service, commodity, or program that impacts the quality of life in your neighborhood. A church or school that is within or borders your neighborhood.
    
    
12. Outcomes: A way to describe how a neighborhood looks and behaves when it is healthy.
    
    
13. Physical Conditions: How the infrastructure, houses, and other public spaces have been maintained.
    
    
14. Reciprocity: A relation of mutual dependence or action or influence; mutual exchange or rights or privileges.
    
    
15. Strategy: Plan of action to accomplish specific goals.
    
    
16. Social Capital: Connections or networks among individuals and groups that generate reciprocity and trustworthiness, which, taken all together, make it easier to coordinate and cooperate for mutual benefit.
    
    
17. Toolbox: A set of compiled programs, services, and activities for use in addressing neighborhood health concerns.