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."
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