by Sarah Daniel. Researchers increasingly recognize that neighborhoods profoundly shape life outcomes, yet measuring them remains challenging. A common approach uses administrative boundaries, such as census tracts, as proxies for neighborhoods, but this method presents three key challenges. First, administrative boundaries may fail to capture residents’ lived experiences, a limitation that is particularly concerning in marginalized communities; second, they can misrepresent contextual effects; and third, they may produce inconsistent findings. To address these issues, I advocate for the use of self-defined neighborhood boundaries as an alternative measure. I compare GIS- and non-GIS-based methods and propose that GIS-based methods offer the strongest potential for more valid measurement.
