Local Attachments: The Making of an American Urban Neighborhood, 1850-1920.

By Alexander von Hoffman (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. xxiv plus 311pp.).

Part of a growing literature on urban neighborhoods, Local Attachments is a case study of a Boston neighborhood, Jamaica Plain, from 1850 to 1920. Moving beyond traditional analyses of American urban neighborhoods as geographic entities housing particular ethnic, social or economic groups, von Hoffman suggests that late nineteenth-century neighborhoods were, like the cities of which they were a part, comprised of a mix of residential, industrial and commercial uses. Von Hoffman argues that neighborhoods and neighborhood institutions, rather than the central business districts about which we usually read, formed the locus of late nineteenth. and early twentieth-century urban life. Focusing on public rather than private life, von Hoffman's analysis rests on a solid base of primary sources, including neighborhood newspapers, city directories, real estate surveys and mortgage lists, and is richly illustrated with photographs and maps.

Although it remains unclear just how representative Jamaica Plain is as an urban neighborhood, its evolution as a mixed-use urban subdistrict is a fascinating account of American urban development. Jamaica Plain was originally a fringe district of market-oriented farming and country estates, but as the city industrialized, it developed the kinds of industrial activities traditionally associated with the urban fringe. As Jamaica Plain's industries developed, they gave rise to workers' housing. The existence of large estates, however, and commuting options to Boston, continued to attract wealthy Bostonians and their middle-class counterparts to the area. Although inhabiting somewhat distinct subdistricts, Jamaica Plain's diverse residents shared a common geographic identity and developed strong "allegiances of place independent of class and ethnicity" (xx). Even today, Jamaica Plain retains its strong neighborhood identity, although its subdistricts are more noticeably organized along racial and ethnic lines than von Hoffman suggests was true in the past.

Von Hoffman argues that community was not destroyed by urbanization, but instead survived migration to the city and was expressed by urban dwellers as a spatially defined attachment to place. Jamaica Plainers exhibited "local attachments" in their work and business relations, their social clubs and religious organizations, and their leisure and philanthropic activities. The organizations suburban residents joined were invariably neighborhood-based, such as churches and theater clubs or local branches of national organizations like the Masons. Most of Jamaica Plain's residents participated in some kind of institutional life, and although many institutions were segregated by class and ethnicity, some, particularly political clubs, were not. Exhibiting a "shared sense of community" (xxiii), the men and women of Jamaica Plain interacted with one another in social and business settings, attended community events such as sports contests and parades, and gathered on the shores of Jamaica Pond for annual events such as the July Fourth festivities. According to von Hoffman, even Jamaica Plain's business activities were fueled by a local capital market consisting of neighbors and km.

The significance of von Hoffman's study is not that he tells us that Bostonians had strong neighborhood identification, although this is an important observation, but that this community identity frequently superseded narrower identities based on ethnicity and class. Forcing us to reevaluate Sam Bass Warner's contention that nineteenth-century urban development gave rise to cities highly segregated by class, ethnicity and race, von Hoffman suggests that neighborhood institutions brought the diverse residents of Jamaica Plain together in a commonly shared identity, effectively bridging the gap among various ethnic groups and economic and social classes. Political parties in particular provided an important means of mitigating group differences. As von Hoffman points out, "because local political patty organizations were open to a wide range of neighborhood ethnic and class groups, the political system provided a forum for mediation between the diverse elements of the urban population" (xxiv). Boston's political organization, a strong city council elected by wards, made this shared identity through "local attachments" particularly meaningful by dispensing resources, like most cities at the time, on the basis of geographical units or neighborhoods.

Operating in opposition to this tradition of localism, however, Boston's Progressive-era reformers, including some Jamaica Plainers, sought to develop universal principles to guide urban development. Applying these principles to reforming the physical environment, they helped develop a network of parks benefiting both Boston and Jamaica Plain. When they turned their attention to politics, however, the substitution of universal principles for the traditional log rolling of municipal government created an urban system in which local government no longer responded to the needs of local citizens and the diverse members of Boston's neighborhoods no longer had an effective means of coming together in a system of shared allegiances. By effectively transferring political power from the neighborhoods to the center, Boston's reformers undermined the geographic focus of local politics and opened the way for special interest groups to dominate the political process. When neighborhoods were the locus of political power and resource distribution, the various factions within the neighborhood came together in common cause. When that neighborhood focus was removed to a city hall governed by non-partisan, city-wide elections, the practical rewards of local attachments were weakened and neighborhood residents realigned themselves into more clearly delineated ethnic and class groupings. Thus, the loss of urban community resulted not from the city building tradition of privatism described by Warner in The Private City (1968), but from the failure of urban reformers to understand the importance of meaningful local attachments (and neighborhood-based rewards) to the equitable operation of the urban system.

Overall, von Hoffman's analysis is persuasive, well-written and interesting to read. It remains unclear how continued attachment to local places would have influenced late twentieth-century urban development, or, as von Hoffman seems to imply, helped contain the extraordinary pressures exerted by divisions of race, class and ethnicity. But his analysis suggests we need to reconsider the role of neighborhoods in American urban life and explore further the ways in which past generations dealt with their differences. Issues of race, so important to understanding today's cities, are not really addressed in the book, but the author's attention to the nuances of class and his emphasis on the centrality of neighborhood allegiances to late nineteenth-century urban public life make this book relevant not only for advancing our knowledge of the past, but for improving our understanding of the present as well.