Jay Walljasper reviews Pocket Neighborhoods: Creating a Small-Scale Community in a Large-Scale World by architect Ross Chapin. Chapin says groupings of four to twelve households make the best communities.
Chapin says that small clusters of living units or houses that share a common area are the best breeding grounds for neighborliness:
Walljasper summarizes:
"...Chapin points out these commons can take many different forms-an apartment building in Cambridge with a shared backyard, a group of neighbors in Oakland who tore down their backyard fences to create a commons, a block in Baltimore that turned their alley into a pubic commons, or the residential pedestrian streets found in Manhattan Beach, California, and all around Europe."
Read the full story: How to Design a Neighborhood for Happiness
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City of Thousand Oaks
City of Wisconsin Rapids
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello