


The model (right) represents a formal theory of how people will move to be close to their nearest friend. Version 1.0 focuses on mainly working out a simple example of interactions between social networks and spatial relationships. Examples include school-based and community based positive youth development interventions, drug use/addiction and treatment in rural settings, community responses to domestic violence, neighborhood effects and interventions, homelessness, supports for ex-offenders released from prison or jail, and health inequities. The approach has a wide range of possible applications in theory development and community intervention design, research, and evaluation. The purpose of this model is to (1) demonstrate a way to represent human development that includes individual resources, social networks, and spatial relationships within a single model of a formal feedback theory of development, (2) provide an approach to theory development that begins with a simple model and gradually includes more complex facets of social reality (e.g., social networks, location), and (3) illustrate its application to formally testing and comparing a theory over a wider range of assumptions that can inform the design of data collection and analysis to more accurately reflect the dynamics of human development and outcomes.
