Neighborhood block parties are celebratory gatherings to which all residents of a neighborhood segment (a single block, a group of adjacent blocks, or an entire street) are invited.  They are usually organized around a holiday, such as the Fourth of July, or other local event.  Because block parties are typically associated with cookouts or picnics on a street or lawn, they most often occur in the summer.  The anti-crime organization National Night Out  has encouraged nationwide neighborhood block parties on a single summer night each year [1]. 

The Case for Block Parties

Today, social networks typically emerge at work, at school an within a host of online communities.  Yet the neighborhood block, a historically vibrant source of local relationships, has largely become a disconnected collection of houses and residents. For many communities, this trend of fewer informal links within a neighborhood has been associated with a heightened sense of risks that threaten the health and security of neighborhood residents and their children. 

Furthermore, studies have shown that neighborliness influences perceptions of health and reinforces the local relationships enabling response to community concerns. When neighbors know one another, they know who belongs on the street and more likely to respond to suspicious activity [2]. Researcher and Vanderbilt Professor Sandra Barnes' examination of the effects of family ties shows that respondents who know more families in their neighborhoods are more likely to engage in neighborhood improvement activities; block parties facilitate the creation of those relationships. She also found that poor neighborhoods were not as distinguishable from non-poor neighborhoods if the neighborhood ties variable was included [3] ; in other words, neighborhood ties could reduce the impact of typical neighborhood variables.  

Which begs the question, how do communities overcome the barriers to building neighbor to neighbor relationships? The neighborhood block, defined as the dwellings fronting on a single street between two cross streets, serves as a reasonable point of entry for health promoters for a number of reasons. A few of the reasons are identified by Douglas Perkins, a leading researcher in social capital and community development. First, he discusses the process of "informal control", which makes people more likely to interact in the setting of the neighborhood block than in larger social units. Second, if neighborhoods are more homogeneous then people are more likely to share similar concerns. And third, participation rates at the block level are found to be higher than at any other level. 

Public spaces such as the street block remain understudied and underutilized in the effort to increase social capital.  For decades, street blocks in cities such as Philadelphia have hosted a number of block parties and it can reasonably be argued that these frequent social gatherings foster the ties necessary for a vibrant community life and that they can generate stronger social networks.  Additionally, block parties illuminate neighborhood resources rather than deficits [4].  

ALSO ON THE LIVABLE STREETS NETWORK

REFERENCES

[1] National Night Out 2009

[2] Taylor, R.B. (1997). Social Order and Disorder of Street Blocks and Neighborhoods: Ecology, Microecology, and the Systemic Model of Social Disorganization. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 34, 113-155. 

[3] Barnes, Sandra (2003). Determinants of Individual Neighborhood Ties and Scoial Resources in Poor Neighborhoods. Sociological Spectrum, 23, 4, Oct - Dec. 463-497.

[4] Kretsman, J & McKnight,J. (1993). Building communities from the inside out: A path towards finding and mobilizing a community's assets. Chicago, IL: Acta Publications.

PICTURE REFERENCES

[1] Block Party.  Photo from the Clerk's Office of the New Hyde Park, New York.

FURTHER READING

• Neighborhood Block Party Guide (pdf).  Police Department, City of Oakland, CA.