» grocery stores

Rethinking urban poverty from institutional and organizational perspectives

mariosmall — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 19:23:52 +0000

Urban organizations conference in Chicago! “The University of Chicago is hosting a conference entitled “Rethinking Urban Poverty for the 21st Century: Institutional and Organizational Perspectives” on March 10-11, 2011. As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, the prospects for U.S. cities remain uncertain. The promised reinvention of many former manufacturing centers has been halted in its tracks, as record budget deficits, limited growth prospects, and stubbornly high unemployment rates undermine urban recovery. The urban poor continue to bear most heavily the burden of a continuing housing crisis, chronically underperforming schools at a time of increasing returns to education, persistently high births to unmarried mothers, unprecedented rates of obesity and other health problems, and an expansion of the criminal justice system that insists on breaking imprisonment records. Understanding these conditions calls for scholarly perspectives the focus not only on individuals or neighborhoods but also on the institutions and organizations that structure their daily lives, mediate their relation to the state, and facilitate or constrain their ability to acquire resources. The papers either adopt or examine the role of institutional and organizational perspectives to the study of housing, health, criminal justice, education, and immigration in urban contexts. For more, and to register, see http://urbanforums.uchicago.edu.”

Study finds that neighborhood organizations are strong predictors of social capital

mariosmall — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:08:51 +0000

In a new study published in the Journal of Urban Affairs, Alexandra Curley studies social capital levels among participants in a Boston housing relocation program. From the abstract: “This article examines the social capital available to low-income households which were relocated to different types of neighborhoods with the HOPE VI program, an initiative aimed at redeveloping U.S. public housing developments into mixed-income communities. Along with improving the living environment, HOPE VI is thought to improve residents’ access to social capital by changing the economic mix of their neighborhoods. This article contributes evidence from multivariate analyses of survey data of Boston HOPE VI residents in their post-HOPE VI neighborhoods. Findings indicate that rather than neighborhood socioeconomic mix, neighborhood resources, such as libraries, recreation facilities, parks, grocery stores, and social services, followed by place attachment and feelings of safety,were the strongest predictors of social capital….”

Report finds reduction of Chicago’s “food desert” between 2006 and 2009

mariosmall — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:07:33 +0000

The Mari Gallagher Research and Consulting Group has released a follow-up of its 2006 report on “food deserts”—areas deprived of grocery stores selling high quality foods—in Chicago. The researchers find that, on average, the total Chicago food desert became smaller by 1.4 square miles. However, the change was uneven, and in some neighborhoods conditions worsened. The study finds that most neighborhoods deprived of quality grocery stores are located on the West and South sides.

Mario Small publishes book on networks of mothers in urban childcare centers

mariosmall — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 05:26:44 +0000

Mario Small has published a new book, Unanticipated Gains: Origins of Network Inequality in Everday Life. From the book description: Social capital theorists have shown that some people do better than others in part because they enjoy larger, more supportive, or otherwise more useful networks. But why do some people have better networks than others? Unanticipated Gains argues that the answer lies less in people’s deliberate “networking” than in the institutional conditions of the churches, colleges, firms, gyms, childcare centers, schools, and other organizations in which they happen to participate routinely. The book illustrates and develops this argument by exploring the experiences of New York City mothers whose children were enrolled in childcare centers. Relying on scores of in-depth interviews with mothers, quantitative data on both mothers and centers, and detailed case studies of other routine organizations (from beauty salons and bath houses to colleges and churches), Unanticiapted Gains shows that how much people gain from their connections depends substantially on institutional conditions they often do not control, and through everyday process they may not even be aware of. Click here for more information and an excerpt.

Joe Galaskiewicz receives NSF funding to study Phoenix organizations and their impact on the urban community

Celeste Watkins-Hayes — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:34:53 +0000

Joe Galaskiewicz at the University of Arizona recently received $162,274 from
the National Science Foundation to fund his project, “Organizations and their
Impact on the Urban Community.” This funding helps Joe continue his research on
the distribution of organizational resources across the Phoenix metropolitan
area, their effect on what children do in the free time on the weekends, and
how organizations migrate across the metropolitan community in response to
demographic shifts, changes in zoning laws, and competition among
organizational providers. The research looks at a broad range of
establishments that serve community residents including parks, recreation
centers, churches, retail outlets, restaurants, bowling and fitness centers,
barber shops, department stores, malls, theatres, and many, many more local
establishments. For some of Joe’s preliminary results, go to:

http://www.childresearch.net/RESOURCE/RESEARCH/2007/GALASKIEWICZ.HTM

New paper: Availability of healthy foods may decrease hypertension

mariosmall — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:28:41 +0000

“Neighborhood Characteristics and Hypertension,” authored by Mahasin Mujahid and others, was recently published in Epidemiology. From the abstract: The goal of this study was to investigate cross-sectional associations between features of neighborhoods and hypertension and to examine the sensitivity of results to various methods of estimating neighborhood conditions. We used data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis on 2612 individuals 45-85 years of age…. Neighborhood (census tract) conditions potentially related to hypertension (walking environment, availability of healthy foods, safety, social cohesion) were measured using information from a separate phone survey conducted in the study neighborhoods…. Residents of neighborhoods with better walkability, availability of healthy foods, greater safety, and more social cohesion were less likely to be hypertensive.

New issue of City of Community features symposium on the ghetto

Celeste Watkins-Hayes — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:54:48 +0000

The latest issue of the journal City and Community (December 2008 ) features several articles that explore analytic assumptions, international perspectives, and new directions in the study of communities commonly referred to as ghettos. In one of the pieces, “Four Reasons to Abandon the Idea of ‘The Ghetto,’” Mario Small questions the common use of the concept “the ghetto” to theorize conditions in poor, predominantly black urban neighborhoods in the United States. He argues, among other things, that poor black neighborhoods differ dramatically from place to place in their organizational density, the number of banks, childcare centers, pharmacies, and other everyday organizations.

Papers in the symposium:

The Ghetto: Origins, History, Discourse (p 347-352)
Bruce Haynes, Ray Hutchison

Involuntary Segregation and the Ghetto: Disconnecting Process and Place (p 353-357)
Herbert J. Gans

A Century of Harlem in New York City: Some Notes on Migration, Consolidation, Segregation, and Recent Developments (p 358-365)
Andrew A. Beveridge

Barrio Geneology (p 366-371)
Diego Vigil

From the Outside Looking in: A “European” Perspective on the Ghetto (p 372-377)
Talja Blokland

Enclaves, Condominiums, and Favelas: Where Are the Ghettos in Brazil? (p 378-383)
Circe Monteiro

Reconsidering the “Ghetto”¹ (p 384-388 )
Anmol Chaddha, William Julius Wilson

Four Reasons to Abandon the Idea of “The Ghetto” (p 389-398 )
Mario Luis Small

City and Community Volume 7, Number 4, December 2008

New book by Martin Sanzchez-Jankowski

mariosmall — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:47:00 +0000

Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change and Resilience in Poor Neighborhoods (University of California Press), based on nearly a decade of fieldwork in New York and Los Angeles, examines how several types of local organizations—the grocery store, the barbershop and beauty salon, the local high school, the gang, and the housing project—structure order and stability in urban neighborhoods.