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Healthcare systems are increasingly investing in approaches to address social determinants of health and health disparities. Such initiatives dovetail with certain approaches to neighborhood development, such as the EcoDistrict standard for community development, that prioritize both ecologically and socially sustainable neighborhoods. However, healthcare system and community development initiatives can be untethered from the preferences and lived realities of residents in the very neighborhoods upon which they focus. Utilizing the go‐along approach to collecting qualitative data in situ, we interviewed 19 adults to delineate residents' community health perspectives and priorities. Findings reveal health priorities distinct from clinical outcomes, with residents emphasizing social connectedness, competing intra‐ and interneighborhood perceptions that potentially thwart social connectedness, and a neighborhood emplacement of agency, dignity, and self‐worth. Priorities of healthcare systems and community members alike must be accounted for to optimize efforts that promote health and social well‐being by being valid and meaningful to the community of focus. Highlights: Health system investments in social determinants are often untethered from neighborhood preferences.Go‐along interviews efficiently ascertain community priorities for neighborhood transformation.Neighborhood residents articulate social connectedness as a key meaning of health.Participants described neighborhood emplacement of self‐worth from internalizing outsiders' views.Community development interventions should include resident voices in planning and evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]