Drawing on seven years of ethnographic fieldwork, as well as interviews, crime statistics, and census data, this study documents the demolition and redevelopment of a predominately African-American housing development in Chicago. I describe how living in a hypersegregated, high crime neighborhood affects the way residents use, affectively feel, and navigate their inner-city terrain. Drawing on the bodies of research in urban sociology and behavioral geography, and using an "unsettled" time as an opportunity to research the habitus of social space, this research offers a more nuanced examination of a community and its physical and social space. I advance the social isolation and social disorganization theories by using innovative methodological tools and framing concepts. I use cognitive mapping and restrictive cognitive frames to understand cultural adaptations to the structural constraints of social isolation. I find that these intricate cognitive maps and restrictive cognitive frames produce a mentality or habitus that make the block one lives on seem manageable and familiar, while making everything outside of this one block appear foreign and vast. This study contributes to research on the interplay of space and social structure and examines the complexities of living in a violent neighborhood.

Last modified

• 08/30/2018

Creator

• Wenona Charlene Rymond-Richmond

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N2613V

Subject

• Sociology

Keyword

• public housing
• crime
• cognitive map
• criminology

Date created

• 2007-11-14

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright