Our starting point was to understand how people conceptualise neighbourhood change, and how concepts of neighbourhood and of change can be operationalised in research designs. We identified four key issues of debate: the concept of neighbourhood itself; issues of space and time; issues about the interpretation of change and the need to take on board different perspectives, arising both because people have different levels of involvement in and stake in their neighbourhoods; and the question of whether relative or absolute change is most relevant to measure.  Reviewing these debates leads us to conclude that neighbourhood research needs to:

• find a balance between using composite indicators in order to be able to identify patterns and generalise about neighbourhood types and trajectories, and illuminating the nuances of change within these overall patterns.
• be underpinned by a theoretical understanding of which changes should be measured at which spatial levels and over which timescales, and to incorporate different tiers of measurement of space and time.
• evaluate changes and outcomes for different groups of people within neighbourhoods, and also ensure that different perspectives are considered in making evaluative judgments of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ change.
• be clear about whether absolute or relative change is being measured and why.