Traditionally, social historians looked for the way these relationships played out elsewhere-in the family, at the workplace, or in the city at large. The neighborhood, however, offers a different kind of laboratory, where historians observe the social interactions that develop among people living in close proximity. By recognizing the special relationships formed in this way, so cial historians have added another dimension to the analysis of people’s daily lives: that where they live is as much a part of their identity as where they work,

For most social historians, the questions of where people live and how that affects their identity cannot be answered without attempting to understand the underlying relationships of power. Neighborhoods, as with any other social institution, tend to reflect and re-create the power hierarchies of the society at large. In this broader context, then, the neighborhood is an urban residential unit that embodies a set of relationships that are shaped by existing power structures. In any modern city, the juxtaposition of affluent, tree-lined streets and their poorer counterparts illustrates the reality of hierarchical space. While this point is visually obvious, social historians ask how these contrasts originated, what their impact has been, and how they change over time.