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.
Urban, rural areas battle for census prison populace
May 3, 2010 at 11:34 am | Posted in cities, geography, news, prison system | Leave a commentPrison are often in small rural towns, while much of the prison population originates from urban areas. The 2010 census considers the area in which inmates are incarcerated as their community of residence rather than the neighborhoods from which they originate. This increase in population for these small rural towns has significant implications for the largely white populations that reside there. The larger population count often leads to great political representation through the allotment of elected officials and increased funds for schools, roads, and infrastructure investments. Conversely, the plunge in population numbers for the urban, mostly black and Hispanic areas where many incarcerated individuals would normally be counted perpetuates the inadequate resources going to many of these communities. This raises a variety of questions for the viability of urban institutions and the resources that they have at their disposal.
View the following link for more information:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123663462
The shrinking of Detroit
February 25, 2010 at 2:19 pm | Posted in geography, housing, neighborhoods, poverty | Leave a commentFacing 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.
Significant policy changes create safer L.A. streets
January 20, 2010 at 12:56 pm | Posted in gangs, neighborhoods, police, prison system | Leave a comment
Tales of released prisoners often include poor recidivism rates or the creation of police informants, but Los Angeles is creating a new narrative about formerly-imprisoned gang members.
A stark contrast from the tensions between the LAPD and local gangs in the early 1990s, police have begun embracing the influence of former gang members, forming a partnership to decrease rumors after violent incidents and mentor younger members. Extending cooperation beyond “informants” is proving beneficial for the South Central community. Both residents and police acknowledge that the area has not seen these levels of safety in over 50 years. Recalling the 90′s, when drive-by shootings were part of everyday life, citizens are embracing the new safety initiatives on behalf of police and ex-offenders alike.
Neighborhood patterns of Netflix rentals
January 9, 2010 at 1:31 pm | Posted in amenities, consumption, geography, NYT, personality, scenes, what to read | 1 CommentThe New York Times has an excellent interactive feature on the distribution of 2009 rentals of particular films across neighborhoods, for New York, Chicago, Boston, D.C., Los Angeles, Atlanta, and a few other cities. For example, in the Hyde Park zip code (site of the University of Chicago), the most rented film in 2009 was Slumdog Millionaire. Yet in 3 of the South Side zip codes that surround it, the most rented film was Tyler Perry’s The Family that Preys. MadMen Season 1 made the top 50 in many of the zip codes in Manhattan and in those sections of Brooklyn nearest Manhattan; it was virtually absent in the rest of the metropolitan area. Relationship to Terry Clark’s amenity-based scenes indexes? To the neighborhood distribution of personality types? Long live the spatial sociology of consumption….
New edition of “Human Services as Complex Organizations” released
December 18, 2009 at 4:39 pm | Posted in amenities, job centers, new books, non-profits, poverty, race, social service agencies, welfare offices, what to read | Leave a comment
Sociologist and social welfare scholar Yeheskel Hasenfeld has recently published a new edition of his seminal volume, Human Services as Complex Organizations. This comprehensive and state-of-the-art collection on human service organizations weaves the latest theoretical and empirical studies in macro theory with contemporary examples from hospitals, schools, social service organizations, mental health centers, and public welfare agencies. Blending theory with application, this outstanding anthology highlights the moral choices and accomplishments made by human service organizations. University of Michigan Professor Emerius Mayer Zald writes, “Hasenfeld has done it again. An excellent collection of essays on many of the most important trends and issues involving human service organizations.” The volume features essays from urbanorgs.org members Celeste Watkins-Hayes, Evelyn Brodkin, Stephen R. Smith, Jodi Sandfort and many others.
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
