ABSTRACT
In posing a research question about African-Americans, this chapter addresses two issues of importance to social scientists. The first concerns the accuracy of a thesis popularized by Fischer and Wellman that urbanites' networks of supportive relationships fall largely outside the boundaries of their immediate neighborhoods. The second issue raised in the chapter is about the nature of black social life in United States. The chapter also introduces compression, avoidance, and composition theories, each of which offers a plausible but distinct explanation for racial differences in neighboring. It examines the three theories in network analytic terms and test them using data from a Nashville, Tennessee, survey. Compression theory predicts that black city-dwellers should be more involved with neighbors than are whites, and in a greater variety of ways. Avoidance theory predicts that African-American neighborhoods should be more socially disorganized. Composition theory predicts that apparent racial differences in neighboring should disappear after other attributes of black and white urbanites have been controlled.
