I want to know if we can use local community and neighborhood interchangeably? Do they have same meaning or local community includes much larger area than neighborhood?
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Have you tried looking up these words in a good dictionary? community is more often used about the people in an area, whereas neighbourhood is more often used about the area. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/community– JavaLatteCommented Apr 19, 2017 at 20:27
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I don't think there is a formal definition of either neighborhood or local community, so it's impossible to say which one is larger.
To this US English speaker, the main differences are
neighborhood sounds informal and natural; local community sounds formal and slightly stilted.
neighborhood mostly refers to the geographical area, and by extension, the people in it; local community refers mostly to the people, and only by extension to the geographical area. For example, in the sentence "A water main broke, and the whole ______ was flooded", only neighborhood sounds natural.
Also, a community does not necessarily refer strictly to a geographical area. For example, everyone living in East Boston is part of the neighborhood, but only the Russians there are part of the Russian community. I might expect a local Russian-language newspaper to use the term local community to refer to local Russian speakers, not everyone in the neighborhood.
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1Commenting on my first point to add that the theme song to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air would have sounded really weird if it went "...a couple of guys who were up to no good / Started making trouble in my local community."– stangdonCommented Apr 19, 2017 at 20:35
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If somebody says " the local community in Austin", for instance, does he/she talk about Austinites in general then?– fateCommented Apr 19, 2017 at 21:00
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1I would take "the local community in Austin" to mean Austinites in general if nothing else was specified.– stangdonCommented Apr 19, 2017 at 21:05