The Problems with Neighbors: An Examination of the Influence of Neighborhood Context Using Large-Scale Administrative Data

Where earlier conceptions of problem neighbors saw them as contributing to neighborhood level forms of disorder, neighbor problems, in contrast, occur in the everyday domestic setting of residential life and challenge conceptual boundaries between public/private and civility/incivility. As a result, there is a need to better understand the phenomenon of problems between neighbors beyond conceptions of public disorder and to understand the processes that influence how and why neighbor problems arise. In this study, we examine neighbor problems as manifest in reported complaints to a local municipality in Australia to understand how neighborhood features affect the likelihood of neighbors experiencing problems with each other. We propose five hypotheses to examine the social-interactive, environmental, and geographical mechanisms of neighborhood effects and test these hypotheses through logistic regression models on the way certain neighborhood features relate to the prevalence of neighbor problems. The findings reveal the sources of neighbor problems that typically reside in a combination of the social-interactive dynamics of the neighborhood itself—including the composition of the resident population—and the environmental features of the neighborhood in terms of the condition, density and use of dwellings, but not in the location of the neighborhood relative to larger-scale political and economic forces of the city. The paper concludes with a discussion of the significance of these findings for research, policy, and practice.