Adjustments of Black and White Elderly to the Same Adaptive Niche

Abstract

of the projects and the characteristics of the surrounding neighborhoods, and the relationships between the two. Inasmuch as the study of community formation among the elderly-like other ethnography -may suffer from exclusive and undue emphasis on patterns and processes within the residential boundaries, the present approach is a useful corrective, as it calls attention to the possible effects of outside or environmental forces on both type and level of community. Our research compares the social organizations of three public housing projects for the elderly in Milwaukee, focusing on the ethnic makeup of their populations and its relationship to that of the surrounding neighborhoods. In effect, Milwaukee has thirteen housing projects for the elderly which, although they differ in important respects, are fundamentally similar in that they constitute a distinct and unique adaptive niche. This niche has six primary characteristics, three having to do with the population that occupies the niche and three with the setting. First, the resident population consists of high-density and exclusive concentrations of the elderly. Secondly, residents are capable of independently performing the usual activities of daily living, i.e., in bio-physical and b havioral terms, they can function with minimal dependence on others. Some individuals manage to continue as residents following a breakdown in health or mobility; whether or how long they manage to do so usually depends on support of spouse (if present), neighbors, or relatives. Thirdly, residents are drawn from only one socioeconomic segment of the community's older persons-the poor. As to characteristics of the setting, first it is a special type of physical setting-an apartment complex or project, mainly of the high-rise type. Secondly, the projects are located in central-city urban neighborhoods, i.e., in areas with high levels of poverty, with crime rates generally above the mean for the city, and with variable access to food markets