I've changed the word "neighborhood" to "area" here, but this was actually the point I was least certain about. A lot of the theory and some studies I see mentioned but can't find do tend to suggest neighborhood, but the Firebaugh study, which is the best I could find an abstract for says not neighborhood but region.

I don't know to what degree that contradicts the earlier results, and since I can't even find full text for Firebaugh, I'm not sure whether it means anything more profound than "try to avoid a house in the middle of a loud dirty ghetto, because you wouldn't like that."

I'm also wary of this whole area because of the controversy around the Easterlin Paradox