Interchange: Neighborhoods are building blocks of civic life

In Planetizen's Interchange blog, planner Charles Buki says that neighborhoods are what create and define value in a city, and cities need to embrace this fact if they want to preserve values and retain residents.

Buki says that the mundane and routine - but comforting - details of life in his neighborhood bring about a kind of reliability and dependability that convinces to people put down roots and keep investing in their homes.

"What generates value is the aggregation of people who choose who they want to be with and under what circumstances," he says, adding that this is what should shape public policy.

Too often, planning efforts have only one goal: To make sure that every stakeholder gets to chime in.

But with the collapse of the housing market in many parts of the country, the competition between neighborhoods for the elusive homebuyer is even more intense.

"The little things" drive buyer choice, and Buki says that planners need to pay attention to the clues in each neighborhood that point the way to livability.