ABSTRACT
The researchers wished to determine the extent of environmental influence on the friendship patterns and opinions of the residents of the areas. Herbert Gans' study of Levittown, New Jersey repudiates any notion of strict spatial determinism of friendship patterns particularly that based on positioning of front doors. There were few people without close ties to the others in their court, and the majority of the people represented exceptions to the factors operating to produce spatial determinism. When people do not think they have to go further out in an urban area to find compatible friends, casual relationships with neighbors can turn into more deeply held friendship relations. A look at the people who were the subject of the studies that are cited to show the case for spatial determinism will show that within each study they were extremely homogeneous.
