 The concept is similar but not identical to neighborhood associations, in that while a neighborhood association is generally a private non-profit organization, a neighborhood council is a governmental structure in which multiple distinct neighborhood associations may be participants.The concept has its origins in the 19th-century emergence of "social centers" or "city clubs", community organizations which were formed in the northeastern United States to provide a forum for citizens to engage in debate on local political issues.In 1917, the city of Edmonton, Alberta, became one of the first cities in the world to directly formalize social centers as a local government structure, when George Hall, a native of Providence, Rhode Island, who had been hired as the city's commissioner of industry in 1912, began implementing a local system of community leagues to assist in addressing the rapidly growing city's social development challenges.