Part 1: The peculiar nature of cities
Chapter 6: The uses of city neighbourhoods
Chapter 6, p 125
Unfortunately, orthodox planning theory is deeply committed to the ideal of the supposedly cozy, inward-turned city neighborhoods. In its pure form, the ideal is a neighborhood composed of 7000 persons, a unit supposedly of sufficient size to populate an elementary school and to support convenience shopping and a community center. … This “ideal” of the city neighbourhood as an island…is an important to our lives nowadays. To see why it is a silly and even harmful “ideal” for cities we must recognize a basic difference between these concoctions grafted into cities and town life…”
Chapter 6, p127
Looking at city neighbourhoods as organs of self-government, I can see evidence of only 3 kinds of neighbourhoods are useful: (I) the city as a whole (2) street neighbourhoods, and (3) districts of large, sub-city size, composed of 100 000 people or more in the case of largest cities. Each of these kinds of neighbourhoods has different functions, but the 3 supplement each other in a complex fashion…. 
City Love 
I was thinking about this type of thing today. The neighbourhoods Jane discusses seem great in places with medium-high density, mixed-use areas like New York or Europe. But much harder to experience here, with our streets that don’t encourage use of the street to walk in or as a place of play for children.
That said, I grew up in Toowoomba, and us kids played on the street and most of our parents knew our neighbours – yet it was far from mixed use or high density. It’s obviously more than just urban design – though I’m sure that can help.
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