Rethinking urban poverty from institutional and organizational perspectives

January 19, 2011 at 2:23 pm | Posted in barbershops, conference, economic development, grocery stores, health, housing, immigrants, neighborhoods, non-profits, organizational density, organizational networks, political organizations, poverty, social capital, social service agencies | Leave a comment

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.”

City and Community article encourages new thinking on African American residential patterns before the Civil Rights Era

September 29, 2010 at 6:28 pm | Posted in cities, geography, housing, neighborhoods, race, what to read | Leave a comment

In the newly published article, “African American Locational Attainment Before the Civil Rights Era,” (City & Community, volume 9, September 2010), Lance Freeman challenges conventional wisdom that prior to the Civil Rights era, blacks of all classes lived side-by-side due to intense discrimination. According to this view, individual socioeconomic status did not translate into improved locational outcomes. By analyzing individual-level data from the 1910-1950 Public Use Microdata Samples, Freeman reveals how individual-level socioeconomic status translated into neighborhood-level outcomes for blacks. Among blacks, individual-level socioeconomic status played no role in determining residential proximity to whites. However, individual-level socioeconomic status for blacks was an important determinant of other neighborhood outcomes. His ground-breaking research suggests that upper-stratum blacks did indeed live in neighborhoods set apart from poorer blacks.

More information about this article available at:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6040.2010.01329.x/abstract

Study finds that neighborhood organizations are strong predictors of social capital

August 24, 2010 at 11:08 am | Posted in amenities, grocery stores, neighborhoods, social organization, social service agencies, supermarkets, what to read | Leave a comment

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….”

Is the Harlem Children’s Zone a waste of money?

August 8, 2010 at 1:25 pm | Posted in childcare centers, education, geography, neighborhoods, organizational networks, social service agencies, youth | Leave a comment

Geoffrey Canada’s effort to transform the lives of low-income children in Harlem by providing a comprehensive array of services within a 100 block area has convinced many skeptics, produced a top seller, and inspired a presidential effort.  A new controversial report by the Urban Institute suggests it may have been a waste of money, at least with respect to its effects on education.  After comparing the test performance of children in the Harlem Children’s Zone Promise Academy to those in other New York City charter schools, the authors conclude, rather uncharitably, “that the HCZ Promise Academy is a middling New York City charter school.”  Canada responds, calling the report “wrong-headed,” for, among other things, misunderstanding the point of the HCZ.  Whitehurst and Croft promptly reply, standing their ground.  Considering that Obama has requested $210 million for the initiative inspired by HCZ, and that Congress seems reluctant to provide it, we really ought to get the story straight.

Why scholars of urban poverty should take culture seriously again

May 10, 2010 at 11:24 pm | Posted in culture, neighborhoods, poverty, reading list, what to read | Leave a comment

A new volume of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences reexamines the relationship between culture and poverty. The volume takes contemporary researchers on poverty to task for largely abandoning the study of culture. At the same time, it challenges dated and discredited perspectives that suggest that the poor are poor because of their cultural values. Instead, it calls for scholars and policy makers to take advantage of new research in anthropology and cultural sociology that forces us to broaden our understanding of culture, poverty, and anti-poverty policy.  See the uncorrected proofs of the introductory article by Mario L Small, David Harding, and Michele Lamont.

State of Metro America report finds dramatic transformations in U.S. cities

May 9, 2010 at 8:39 pm | Posted in data, economic development, geography, neighborhoods, race, what to read | Leave a comment

The report, by the Brookings Institution, argues that a decade of transformation and turmoil has resulted in “five new realities”: the rapid growth and outward expansion of metropolitan areas;  a dramatic diversification of the nation’s ethnic composition; the sharp growth of the 55-64 year-old population; a highly uneven increase in educational attainment; and a continuing rise in income inequality.  Bruce Katz and Judith Rodin discuss some of the implications of these trends.

Article published on how geographic and social spaces condition the use of social service organizations

April 29, 2010 at 11:32 am | Posted in amenities, geography, neighborhoods, non-profits, poverty, social service agencies | Leave a comment

Sociologist Rebecca Joyce Kissane has published a new article in Social Service Review that investigates how issues of geographic and social space condition participants’ use of social resources provided locally by nongovernmental social service organizations (SSOs). Using data from in‐depth qualitative interviews with poor non‐Hispanic white and Puerto Rican women living in a high‐poverty neighborhood in Philadelphia, this article finds that use of SSOs is highly contextual and situated in the local environment. In particular, proximity to agencies is found to be an important consideration in participants’ decision to use SSOs, but equally important are subjective understandings of the immediate environs and the ethnoracial groups that live there. Results suggest that studies of geographic place and social welfare might consider the role of service users’ sense of place and community in whether and how poor people make use of available organizational resources. The article citation is:

  • Kissane, Rebecca Joyce.  2010.  “‘We Call It the Badlands’:  How Social-Spatial Geographies Influence Social Service Use.”  Social Service Review. 84(1):  3-28)

New article highlights the power of ethnic entrepreneurship

March 10, 2010 at 11:30 pm | Posted in immigrants, neighborhoods, reading list, social capital, what to read | Leave a comment

In the new article, “Noneconomic Effects of Ethnic Entrepreneurship: A Focused Look at the Chinese and Korean Enclave Economies in Los Angeles,” Min Zhou and Myungduk Cho aim to develop a conceptual framework from a community perspective to examine the noneconomic effects of ethnic entrepreneurship. They pay close attention to the linkage between entrepreneurship and community building using ethnographic data from comparative case studies of the Chinese and Korean enclave economies in Los Angeles. They argue that it is the social embeddedness of entrepreneurship, rather than individual entrepreneurs per se, that creates a unique social environment conducive to upward social mobility. This study suggests that ethnic entrepreneurship plays a pivotal role in immigrant adaptation beyond observable economic gains. The analysis contributes to the literature on ethnic entrepreneurship by shifting the focal point from ultimate mobility outcomes—earnings or employment opportunities—to intermediate social processes—community building through the consolidation of ethnic social structures, the creation of ethnic social spaces, the return of the co-ethnic middle class, and social capital formation. In this respect, the enclave economy concept is superior for investigating specific social contexts and processes of group-level social mobility.

The piece appears in Thunderbird International Business Review, Vol. 52, No. 2, March/April 2010

The shrinking of Detroit

February 25, 2010 at 2:19 pm | Posted in geography, housing, neighborhoods, poverty | Leave a comment

Facing a $360 million smaller budget, a dwindling tax basis, and a substantially weakened ability to provide services, Detroit appears to have begun the process of downsizing.  From the Detroit News:  “… Mary Bing said Wednesday he “absolutely” intends to relocate residents from desolate neighborhoods and is bracing for inevitable legal challenges when he unveils his downsizing plan.  In his strongest statements about shrinking the city since taking office, Bing told WJR-760 AM the city is using internal and external data to decide ‘winners and losers.’  The city plans to save some neighborhoods and encourage residents to move from others, he said.  ‘If we don’t do it, you know this whole city is going to go down. I’m hopeful people will understand that,’ Bing said.”  The reactions are predictable.  One less ring in the city’s nested concentric circles?

New book examines the historical mechanisms behind residential exploitation

February 24, 2010 at 3:31 pm | Posted in housing, neighborhoods, new books, race, reading list, what to read | Leave a comment

Rutgers University History Professor Beryl Satter, highlights the financial mechanisms of residential segregation in her new book, Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America.  The daughter of Mark Satter, a Chicago lawyer who uncovered redlining tactics in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Satter highlights the history that is buried in the minds of so many Chicago families, especially hers.  Placing the story of a young African American couple, Albert and Sallie Bolton, at the center of the book, Satter provides personal examples of the hardship endured by African Americans during the Great Migration. The book goes into depth about contract selling, the practice in which landlords sold African Americans overpriced homes, kept the titles until black homeowners paid them off, and charged excessive interest rates to insure they never could. Contract selling cost thousands of migrating blacks their livelihoods and solidified many of the economic disparities in housing and access to credit that social scientists are working to understand today.

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