This chapter examines Gaza’s socio-spatial organization and the demographic features of its population. It presents Gaza’s main urban features during the late Ottoman period, including divisions into neighborhoods, main landmarks and thoroughfares. It then offers an in-depth portrayal of Gazan society, including data on economy and lifestyles, social hierarchies, marriage patterns, migration and health, based on a detailed analysis of the Ottoman census of 1905 and surviving court records (1857–1861), in light of evidence from the literature, maps and images.

In this chapter we discuss local convergence, which describes the intuitive notion that a finite graph, seen from the perspective of a typical vertex, looks like a certain limiting graph. Local convergence plays a profound role in random graph theory. We give general definitions of local convergence in several probabilistic senses. We then show that local convergence in its various forms is equivalent to the appropriate convergence of subgraph counts. We continue by discussing several implications of local convergence, concerning local neighborhoods, clustering, assortativity, and PageRank. We further investigate the relation between local convergence and the size of the giant, making the statement that the giant is “almost local” precise.

This chapter will lay out a potted account of the literature of New York and its relationship to world literature braiding two main themes: first will be that of New York as a center of self-invention, a place that was primarily commercial at its inception but progressively expanded to embrace diverse forms of ethnic, cultural, sexual, and urban interactions. And second will be to focus on the significance of neighborhoods and sweatshops as the spatial vectors through which immigrants and diasporics gain a sense of New York. The bulk of the chapter and will be devoted to a close analysis of the chronotopes of the neighborhood and the sweatshop in Toni Morrison’sJazzand Melissa Rivero’sThe Affairs of the Falcónsrespectively as a means of grasping the relationship between localized foci of individual mobility, identity, and alienation in the literature of New York and the ways in which we might also discern these as key organizing principles of world literature.

Chapter 7 describes the generative, or bottom-up, forces that were part of urban life. These are organized in terms of households, crafts and occupations, neighborhoods, and quality of life.

In this chapter, we explore the phenomenon of homeless squatting on empty land through the prism of ownership and owners, and reflect on how the changing nature and conceptions of ownership have re-shaped the norms and narratives of absent ownership. We begin by examining “ownership” as a scaled concept: building on our approach in Chapter 6, we explore how the registers of scale – and, particularly, the dynamics of “upscaling” and “downscaling” – reveal the multiple layers of meaning, values and interactions within the frame of ownership: between individual (absent owners) and institutional (the law of ownership; the institution of private property) stakeholders, and between these interests, squatters, and the state. We reflect on how the character of ownership, and of owners, have changed since the 1970s, resulting in the emergence of the “investor model” of owner-occupation, and the normalization of small-scale landlordism and property development. We consider the resilience needs of absent owners, and examples of state action in relation to unlawful occupation that allocates resilience to absentee owners. Finally, we begin to reflect on the impact of absenteeism on neighborhoods, and the relationships between absentee owners and owner-neighbors.

In Chapters 6–8, we examine how state responses to squatting, and the lenses through which the competing claims of stakeholders are seen, articulated, prioritized, and evaluated, frame debates about homeless squatting in empty land in the context of complex, competing, multi-scalar normative goals. In doing so, we continue to recognize that squatting conflicts are embedded in political, economic, cultural, social, and legal jurisdictional contexts, and that, in these contexts, assumed identities and characteristics are assigned to competing actors, as legal and extra-legal norms are applied to tackle problems and adjudicate conflicts. In this chapter we focus, firstly, on the conceptual and pragmatic meanings – and the “scaled production” – of possession in common law and civil law traditions. We then examine how the act of squatting, and the status of squatters, has been rescaled in recent years. On one axis, we read adaptations in state responses to property events – for example, the criminalization of squatting – as reflecting the upscaling or elevation of the squatting “event.” The criminalization of squatting – or any other erstwhile non-criminal activity – signals that a previously low-stake event has accrued high-stakes impact for the state. It reveals new or emerging pressures on the state to take “other-regarding” action, mediating directly between competing (erstwhile private) claims (for example, owners, squatters, investors, neighbors). And the nature of the state’s response signals to the alignment of particular resilience claims with the state’s (or the government’s) own resilience needs. In focusing on the problem of homeless squatting on empty land through the prism of the homeless squatter, we adopt the framing techniques discussed in Chapter 5: placing the squatter at the center of the network of competing stakeholders and examining the “webby relations” that shape, mediate and separate representations of squatters in accounts of homeless squatting on empty land.

Chapter 9, “Residential Constantinople,” considers Constantinopolitan domestic architecture by examining written sources and material remains. It discusses the evidence chronologically and according to social group, distinguishing between the early Byzantine period and the middle and late Byzantine periods to demonstrate that, institutional continuity notwithstanding, the makeup of the residential city and its components changed over time.

This chapter focuses on the honorific monuments that professional and neighborhood-based associations raised to members of the Vedii family. Studying their linguistic formulae, and their archaeological and historical contexts, it clarifies the social situation, and hints at the economic relationships that the Vedii had with the makers and sellers of goods in Ephesos, who were part of the plebs media. These inscriptions allow us to see these associations as key constituents of the urban community and the Vedii as having economic interests in them. Furthermore, we are able to map physically the influence of the family on the city Ephesos by locating the places of the neighborhood associations that honored them.

The goal of this chapter is to address how urban dynamics at the neighborhood level are linked to children’s development. We first review trends in the spatial concentration of poverty and inequality in the United States in recent decades. Then, we turn to theoretical models describing how local communities, with a focus on urban settings, influence children’s development. We then cover methodological issues and focus on one critical issue, selection bias, and then briefly review study designs as related to this challenge. Finally, we provide an overview of empirical studies linking neighborhood, socioeconomic conditions, and children’s development, notably their educational, behavioral, and socioemotional outcomes.

The goal of this chapter is to address how urban dynamics at the neighborhood level are linked to children’s development. We first review trends in the spatial concentration of poverty and inequality in the United States in recent decades. Then, we turn to theoretical models describing how local communities, with a focus on urban settings, influence children’s development. We then cover methodological issues and focus on one critical issue, selection bias, and then briefly review study designs as related to this challenge. Finally, we provide an overview of empirical studies linking neighborhood, socioeconomic conditions, and children’s development, notably their educational, behavioral, and socioemotional outcomes.