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65-517: Redwood Heights is a primarily middle-class and highly diverse residential neighborhood in the hills of East Oakland, California . It is centered on Redwood Road, which was once a logging road. Redwood Road is the designation for 35th Avenue, starting about one mile north of MacArthur Boulevard between Victor Avenue and the Warren Freeway ( California State Route 13 ). It lies at an elevation of 476 feet (145 m). Redwood Heights Elementary School and

130-410: A residents' committee ; these are subdivided into residents' small groups of fifteen to forty families. In most urban areas of China, neighbourhood , community , residential community , residential unit , residential quarter have the same meaning: 社区 or 小区 or 居民区 or 居住区 , and is the direct sublevel of a subdistrict ( 街道办事处 ), which is the direct sublevel of a district ( 区 ), which

195-600: A taxonomy that maps community relations, and recognizes that actual communities can be characterized by different kinds of relations at the same time: In these terms, communities can be nested and/or intersecting; one community can contain another—for example a location-based community may contain a number of ethnic communities . Both lists above can be used in a cross-cutting matrix in relation to each other. In general, virtual communities value knowledge and information as currency or social resource. What differentiates virtual communities from their physical counterparts

260-503: A 1925 advertisement called the new neighborhood "the Piedmont of East Oakland." The Oakland Tribune of the day extolled its "beautifully wooded hillsides...the pleasure in hiking and riding horseback...excellent climate...and...marine view." A house and the land it stood on sold for about $ 5,000. Two grocery stores, a hair salon, a drug store, a liquor store, and a shoe repair, served customers at Monterey and Redwood. However, sales literature of

325-528: A common agenda. Community development practitioners must understand both how to work with individuals and how to affect communities' positions within the context of larger social institutions. Public administrators, in contrast, need to understand community development in the context of rural and urban development, housing and economic development, and community, organizational and business development. Formal accredited programs conducted by universities, as part of degree granting institutions, are often used to build

390-590: A community can seem like a sub-set of a social collectivity . In developmental views, a community can emerge out of a collectivity. The English-language word "community" derives from the Old French comuneté ( Modern French : communauté ), which comes from the Latin communitas "community", "public spirit" (from Latin communis , "common"). Human communities may have intent , belief , resources , preferences , needs , and risks in common, affecting

455-680: A democratic election started to realign with community interests. In ecology , a community is an assemblage of populations—potentially of different species—interacting with one another. Community ecology is the branch of ecology that studies interactions between and among species. It considers how such interactions, along with interactions between species and the abiotic environment, affect social structure and species richness, diversity and patterns of abundance. Species interact in three ways: competition , predation and mutualism : The two main types of ecological communities are major communities, which are self-sustaining and self-regulating (such as

520-550: A forest or a lake), and minor communities, which rely on other communities (like fungi decomposing a log) and are the building blocks of major communities. Moreover, we can establish other non-taxonomic subdivisions of biocenosis, such as guilds . The concept of "community" often has a positive semantic connotation, exploited rhetorically by populist politicians and by advertisers to promote feelings and associations of mutual well-being, happiness and togetherness —veering towards an almost-achievable utopian community . In contrast,

585-423: A geographically localized community within a larger city , town , suburb or rural area , sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neighbourhoods are often social communities with considerable face-to-face interaction among members. Researchers have not agreed on an exact definition, but the following may serve as a starting point: "Neighbourhood is generally defined spatially as

650-796: A high level of regulation of social life by officials. For example, in the Tang period Chinese capital city Chang'an, neighbourhoods were districts and there were state officials who carefully controlled life and activity at the neighbourhood level. Neighbourhoods in preindustrial cities often had some degree of social specialisation or differentiation. Ethnic neighbourhoods were important in many past cities and remain common in cities today. Economic specialists, including craft producers, merchants, and others, could be concentrated in neighbourhoods, and in societies with religious pluralism neighbourhoods were often specialised by religion. One factor contributing to neighbourhood distinctiveness and social cohesion in past cities

715-950: A knowledge base to drive curricula in public administration , sociology and community studies . The General Social Survey from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago and the Saguaro Seminar at the Harvard Kennedy School are examples of national community development in the United States. The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in New York State offers core courses in community and economic development, and in areas ranging from non-profit development to US budgeting (federal to local, community funds). In

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780-497: A number of problems: (1) they tend to give the impression that a particular community can be defined as just this kind or another; (2) they tend to conflate modern and customary community relations; (3) they tend to take sociological categories such as ethnicity or race as given, forgetting that different ethnically defined persons live in different kinds of communities—grounded, interest-based, diasporic, etc. In response to these problems, Paul James and his colleagues have developed

845-659: A primarily middle-class population. The 2010 Census reflects the primary zip code (94619) for the neighborhood as having about 23,200 residents, with Caucasians making up about 29.9% of the population, African Americans 26.2%, Asians 22%, and Latinos 16.1%, with other races forming the remaining 5.8%. Before 1820, the native peoples in the area were probably the Jalquin-Irgen people. A bench in Leona Canyon behind Merritt College acknowledges them and their descendants. These California Native Americans saw themselves inextricably bound to

910-447: A sense of community, important to people's identity, practice, and roles in social institutions such as family , home, work, government , TV network, society , or humanity at large. Although communities are usually small relative to personal social ties, "community" may also refer to large-group affiliations such as national communities , international communities , and virtual communities . In terms of sociological categories,

975-420: A small area within a town or city. The label is commonly used to refer to organisations which relate to such a very local structure, such as neighbourhood policing or Neighbourhood watch schemes. In addition, government statistics for local areas are often referred to as neighbourhood statistics, although the data themselves are broken down usually into districts and wards for local purposes. In many parts of

1040-431: A social community and spatial subdivisions of cities and other large settlements may have formed communities. Archaeologists typically use similarities in material culture —from house types to styles of pottery—to reconstruct communities in the past. This classification method relies on the assumption that people or households will share more similarities in the types and styles of their material goods with other members of

1105-419: A social community than they will with outsiders. Early sociological studies identified communities as fringe groups at the behest of local power elites. Such early academic studies include Who Governs? by Robert Dahl as well as the papers by Floyd Hunter on Atlanta . At the turn of the 21st century the concept of community was rediscovered by academics, politicians, and activists. Politicians hoping for

1170-496: A specific geographic area and functionally as a set of social networks. Neighbourhoods, then, are the spatial units in which face-to-face social interactions occur—the personal settings and situations where residents seek to realise common values, socialise youth, and maintain effective social control." In the words of the urban scholar Lewis Mumford , "Neighborhoods, in some annoying, inchoate fashion exist wherever human beings congregate, in permanent family dwellings; and many of

1235-490: A unit of analysis. In mainland China , the term is generally used for the urban administrative division found immediately below the district level, although an intermediate, subdistrict level exists in some cities. They are also called streets (administrative terminology may vary from city to city). Neighbourhoods encompass 2,000 to 10,000 families. Within neighbourhoods, families are grouped into smaller residential units or quarters of 100 to 600 families and supervised by

1300-515: A widely accessible power structure, often with the end goal of distributing power equally throughout the community. Community organizers generally seek to build groups that are open and democratic in governance. Such groups facilitate and encourage consensus decision-making with a focus on the general health of the community rather than a specific interest group. If communities are developed based on something they share in common, whether location or values, then one challenge for developing communities

1365-407: Is faith-based community organizing , or Congregation-based Community Organizing ). Community building can use a wide variety of practices, ranging from simple events (e.g., potlucks , small book clubs ) to larger-scale efforts (e.g., mass festivals , construction projects that involve local participants rather than outside contractors). Community building that is geared toward citizen action

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1430-448: Is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place , set of norms , culture, religion , values , customs , or identity . Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country , village , town , or neighborhood ) or in virtual space through communication platforms. Durable good relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties also define

1495-423: Is how to incorporate individuality and differences. Rebekah Nathan suggests in her book, My Freshman Year , we are drawn to developing communities totally based on sameness, despite stated commitments to diversity, such as those found on university websites. A number of ways to categorize types of community have been proposed. One such breakdown is as follows: The usual categorizations of community relations have

1560-469: Is on Bringing People Together, and it is dedicated to substantially improving the quality of life for Oakland residents by hosting community events and spearheading capital improvement projects. Historical articles about the area are available on the Redwood Heights Association website. Neighborhood A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is

1625-577: Is the direct sublevel of a city ( 市 ). (See Administrative divisions of the People's Republic of China ) The term has no general official or statistical purpose in the United Kingdom, but is often used by local boroughs for self-chosen sub-divisions of their area for the delivery of various services and functions, as for example in Kingston-upon-Thames or is used as an informal term to refer to

1690-530: Is the extent and impact of "weak ties", which are the relationships acquaintances or strangers form to acquire information through online networks. Relationships among members in a virtual community tend to focus on information exchange about specific topics. A survey conducted by Pew Internet and The American Life Project in 2001 found those involved in entertainment, professional, and sports virtual-groups focused their activities on obtaining information. An epidemic of bullying and harassment has arisen from

1755-525: Is usually termed "community organizing". In these cases, organized community groups seek accountability from elected officials and increased direct representation within decision-making bodies. Where good-faith negotiations fail, these constituency-led organizations seek to pressure the decision-makers through a variety of means, including picketing, boycotting , sit-ins, petitioning, and electoral politics. Community organizing can focus on more than just resolving specific issues. Organizing often means building

1820-558: The Gemeinschaft – Gesellschaft dichotomy as a way to think about social ties. No group is exclusively one or the other. Gemeinschaft stress personal social interactions , and the roles, values, and beliefs based on such interactions. Gesellschaft stress indirect interactions, impersonal roles, formal values, and beliefs based on such interactions. In a seminal 1986 study, McMillan and Chavis identify four elements of "sense of community": A "sense of community index" (SCI)

1885-488: The Asset Based Community Development Institute of Northwestern University . The institute makes available downloadable tools to assess community assets and make connections between non-profit groups and other organizations that can help in community building. The Institute focuses on helping communities develop by "mobilizing neighborhood assets" – building from the inside out rather than

1950-456: The epidemiological term " community transmission " can have negative implications, and instead of a "criminal community" one often speaks of a " criminal underworld " or of the "criminal fraternity". In Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887), German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies described two types of human association: Gemeinschaft (usually translated as "community") and Gesellschaft ("society" or "association"). Tönnies proposed

2015-433: The psychodynamic tradition, the most important period of socialization is between the ages of one and ten. But socialization also includes adults moving into a significantly different environment where they must learn a new set of behaviors. Socialization is influenced primarily by the family, through which children first learn community norms . Other important influences include schools, peer groups, people, mass media,

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2080-588: The workplace , and government. The degree to which the norms of a particular society or community are adopted determines one's willingness to engage with others. The norms of tolerance , reciprocity , and trust are important "habits of the heart", as de Tocqueville put it, in an individual's involvement in community. Community development is often linked with community work or community planning, and may involve stakeholders, foundations, governments, or contracted entities including non-government organisations (NGOs), universities or government agencies to progress

2145-559: The 1900s, Clarence Perry described the idea of a neighbourhood unit as a self-contained residential area within a city. The concept is still influential in New Urbanism . Practitioners seek to revive traditional sociability in planned suburban housing based on a set of principles. At the same time, the neighbourhood is a site of interventions to create Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (AFCC) as many older adults tend to have narrower life space. Urban design studies thus use neighbourhood as

2210-481: The 1950s of Oakland's streetcar lines (known as the Key System), the resulting dominance of car culture, the swiftness of transportation, and the increased density of housing stock have all dramatically changed the ecology and sociology of Redwood Heights. Not until the powerful civil rights movement of the 1960s did the neighborhood literally open its doors to multiple cultures. In the early 1960s, Developers completed

2275-562: The Lincoln Square Shopping Center for about $ 500,000 and the new Holy Names College. There are several redwood trees on the school premises, and in 1963, one was planted in remembrance of John F Kennedy. Herb and Ethel Sandal managed the Improvement Association almost single-handedly in the 1970s. They presided over the widening and straightening of Redwood Road—a project meant to deal with the traffic generated by

2340-484: The Redwood Heights Improvement Association in 1944. "Improvement" was a veiled reference to segregation. Post World War II, from about 1947 to 1964, Americans everywhere turned their tax monies to building highways—including Hwy 13, commissioned in 1947 and named for US Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, and Hwy 580, completed in the 1960s and named for General Douglas MacArthur. The removal in

2405-496: The Redwood Heights Neighborhood Association in the 1980s when neighbors changed its purpose to support the elementary school and encourage the socializing that makes for a pleasant and safe way of life. In 2015, the Redwood Heights Neighborhood Association changed its name to Redwood Heights Association, removing its geographical boundaries to serve as a nonprofit organization for all of Oakland. Its focus

2470-553: The UK wards are roughly equivalent to neighbourhoods or a combination of them. In the United States and Canada , neighbourhoods are often given official or semi-official status through neighbourhood associations , neighbourhood watches or block watches. These may regulate such matters as lawn care and fence height, and they may provide such services as block parties , neighbourhood parks and community security . In some other places

2535-411: The United Kingdom, the University of Oxford has led in providing extensive research in the field through its Community Development Journal, used worldwide by sociologists and community development practitioners. At the intersection between community development and community building are a number of programs and organizations with community development tools. One example of this is the program of

2600-468: The bay. Working by hand, it took two men perched on a board wedged in a notch in the trunk a whole day of hacking away at one giant to send it crashing to the forest floor. One felled ancient - estimated to be over a thousand years old - measured 33.5 feet in diameter. The loggers then stripped the redwood of its branches, prized for its resistance to rot and insects, and split it into boards by drilling holes and stuffing them with dynamite. Teams of oxen lugged

2665-719: The control of city or state officials. In some preindustrial urban traditions, basic municipal functions such as protection, social regulation of births and marriages, cleaning and upkeep are handled informally by neighbourhoods and not by urban governments; this pattern is well documented for historical Islamic cities. In addition to social neighbourhoods, most ancient and historical cities also had administrative districts used by officials for taxation, record-keeping, and social control. Administrative districts are typically larger than neighbourhoods and their boundaries may cut across neighbourhood divisions. In some cases, however, administrative districts coincided with neighbourhoods, leading to

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2730-435: The early 2000s, Community Development Corporations, Rehabilitation Networks, Neighbourhood Development Corporations, and Economic Development organisations would work together to address the housing stock and the infrastructures of communities and neighbourhoods (e.g., community centres). Community and Economic Development may be understood in different ways, and may involve "faith-based" groups and congregations in cities. In

2795-521: The equivalent organization is the parish , though a parish may have several neighbourhoods within it depending on the area. In localities where neighbourhoods do not have an official status, questions can arise as to where one neighbourhood begins and another ends. Many cities use districts and wards as official divisions of the city, rather than traditional neighbourhood boundaries. ZIP Code boundaries and post office names also sometimes reflect neighbourhood identities. Community A community

2860-412: The feeling of love and belonging. The process of learning to adopt the behavior patterns of the community is called socialization . The most fertile time of socialization is usually the early stages of life, during which individuals develop the skills and knowledge and learn the roles necessary to function within their culture and social environment . For some psychologists, especially those in

2925-690: The finding proved to be pyrite or fool's gold. More valuable to the community, however, was the vision of a writer-poet born Cincinnatus Miller, who renamed himself Joaquin—after Joaquin Murieta, the "Mexican Robin Hood," hero to the Californios and the most famous outlaw of the Gold Rush. Joaquin Miller, who donned a John Muir-like beard and boots, not only single-handedly planted on the clear-cut hills 70,000 trees—many of them

2990-585: The functions of the city tend to be distributed naturally—that is, without any theoretical preoccupation or political direction—into neighborhoods." Most of the earliest cities around the world as excavated by archaeologists have evidence for the presence of social neighbourhoods. Historical documents shed light on neighbourhood life in numerous historical preindustrial or nonwestern cities. Neighbourhoods are typically generated by social interaction among people living near one another. In this sense they are local social units larger than households not directly under

3055-445: The identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness. Archaeological studies of social communities use the term "community" in two ways, mirroring usage in other areas. The first meaning is an informal definition of community as a place where people used to live. In this literal sense it is synonymous with the concept of an ancient settlement —whether a hamlet , village , town , or city . The second meaning resembles

3120-538: The knowledge and application of certain rules. He states that this process goes through four stages: In 1991, Peck remarked that building a sense of community is easy but maintaining this sense of community is difficult in the modern world. An interview with M. Scott Peck by Alan Atkisson. In Context #29, p. 26. The three basic types of community organizing are grassroots organizing, coalition building, and "institution-based community organizing", (also called "broad-based community organizing", an example of which

3185-470: The living world. They were free of such concepts as "land ownership" and "natural resources." What's more, they would have seen a person isolated from the community as having as much meaning as a "finger severed from a hand." The first non-native culture to touch this world were the Spanish-Californios whose vast land grant, Peralta, is the name of the creek that meanders under and through the streets on

3250-404: The lumber down the roads - including a Redwood Road which was so narrow that many years later, every Sunday, according to one reminiscence, at least one Model T belonging to a picnicker would spin its wheels off the edge. By 1860, the forest was stripped. In the 1880s, for a few days, Oakland thought it had the beginning of its own gold rush in what is now the Lincoln Square Shopping Center. But

3315-485: The neighborhood was called Avenue Terrace, which can be identified by a notable rock/stone "obelisk" situated at the corner of 35th Ave and Victor. This obelisk likely served as a marker for the Avenue Terrace development. In the 1930s, some neighborhood residents privately paid to install streets and sidewalks in front of their homes—each homeowner paying about $ 1,900 over the next ten years. Several neighbors founded

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3380-431: The neighbourhood as a small-scale democracy , regulated primarily by ideas of reciprocity among neighbours. Neighbourhoods have been the site of service delivery or "service interventions" in part as efforts to provide local, quality services, and to increase the degree of local control and ownership. Alfred Kahn, as early as the mid-1970s, described the "experience, theory and fads" of neighbourhood service delivery over

3445-582: The new housing development in the Crestmont Neighborhood on the west side of Redwood above Highway 13. The Sandals had themselves come of age in an era of open racism (the law against interracial marriage was not rescinded in California until 1949). They sweated through the taking of homes on the west side of Redwood Road through eminent domain. They fought the proposals for putting in their place apartment houses and multi-unit low-income housing—in favor of

3510-541: The oldest second-growth redwood forest in the West. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the refugees came streaming to our side of the bay—filling the Fruitvale District and venturing up the hill. The neighborhood known today as Redwood Heights began as a subdivision in the 1920s called Avenue Terrace (the official name of Jordan Park). Oakland's growing downtown middle class was seeking new accommodations, and

3575-472: The outside in. In the disability field, community building was prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s with roots in John McKnight's approaches. In The Different Drum: Community-Making and Peace (1987) Scott Peck argues that the almost accidental sense of community that exists at times of crisis can be consciously built. Peck believes that conscious community building is a process of deliberate design based on

3640-571: The prior decade, including discussion of income transfers and poverty. Neighbourhoods, as a core aspect of community, also are the site of services for youth, including children with disabilities and coordinated approaches to low-income populations. While the term neighbourhood organisation is not as common in 2015, these organisations often are non-profit, sometimes grassroots or even core funded community development centres or branches. Community and economic development activists have pressured for reinvestment in local communities and neighbourhoods. In

3705-614: The recreation center serve as the heart of the community. The recreation center also serves as an after-school daycare for the school and nearby area. Another feature of the neighborhood is Avenue Terrace Park, also known as Jordan Park, located at Jordan Road and Bennett Place. The homes in Redwood Heights primarily originated between the 1920s and 1950s, showcasing a wide range of architectural styles. These styles include craftsman, "storybook," and ranch designs. Redwood Heights has one of Oakland's most ethnically diverse neighborhoods with

3770-452: The small, neatly kept single-family homes which, ironically, for people who believed that "improvement" meant low-ethnic-diversity, immediately welcomed a host of new immigrant families whose contributions have helped make Redwood Heights the culturally intriguing place it is today. After the 1989 earthquake, the city rebuilt the elementary school to meet the updated safety standards. Redwood Heights Improvement Association changed its name to

3835-406: The social well-being of local, regional and, sometimes, national communities. More grassroots efforts, called community building or community organizing , seek to empower individuals and groups of people by providing them with the skills they need to effect change in their own communities. These skills often assist in building political power through the formation of large social groups working for

3900-500: The time euphemistically suggested that no one but European-Americans need apply. There were now streetcar lines and more neighbors. On today's Redwood Heights Elementary School site, Mr. DuBois owned a nursery where he grew cut flowers to sell to local florists. Developers carved out more plots in the 1930s: the Sunset Manor subdivision on upper 35th and Victor and then Redwood Gardens at Redwood and Detroit. The initial development in

3965-429: The unfortunately flammable eucalyptus—but willed to the public trust after his death his vast land holdings, preserving for the generations the open space five minutes from our homes. The park, threaded by walking trails that were probably first cut by loggers and horse ranchers, is a combination of Joaquin Miller's visionary industry. The second growth of the redwood forest, now in about its sixteenth decade, and said to be

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4030-436: The usage of the term in other social sciences : a community is a group of people living near one another who interact socially. Social interaction on a small scale can be difficult to identify with archaeological data. Most reconstructions of social communities by archaeologists rely on the principle that social interaction in the past was conditioned by physical distance. Therefore, a small village settlement likely constituted

4095-638: The west side of Redwood Road. When the US took California from the Mexicans in the Mexican–American War in 1848, the Peralta family fought in court to keep their lands, represented by a Yankee lawyer who promised to help them. Meanwhile, more than one hundred men in nine lumber mills logged the giant redwoods above what is now Skyline Boulevard. The majestic redwoods reached so high that they could be seen shipside from

4160-515: Was developed by Chavis and colleagues, and revised and adapted by others. Although originally designed to assess sense of community in neighborhoods, the index has been adapted for use in schools, the workplace, and a variety of types of communities. Studies conducted by the APPA indicate that young adults who feel a sense of belonging in a community, particularly small communities, develop fewer psychiatric and depressive disorders than those who do not have

4225-482: Was the role of rural to urban migration. This was a continual process in preindustrial cities, and migrants tended to move in with relatives and acquaintances from their rural past. Neighbourhood sociology is a subfield of urban sociology which studies local communities Neighbourhoods are also used in research studies from postal codes and health disparities , to correlations with school drop out rates or use of drugs. Some attention has also been devoted to viewing

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