Comment on George C. Galster’s “Consequences From the Redistribution of Urban Poverty During the 1990s: A Cautionary Tale”

Abstract

George C. Galster presents a static model showing how the deconcentration of poverty to neighborhoods with mid-level poverty rates rather than low-poverty neighborhoods (as occurred in the 1990s) could result in systemwide increases in socially problematic outcomes. This is not seen as a significant concern. The authors present data to suggest that, in the dynamic real world, the potential increases in problems resulting from the workings of Galster’s model could well be more than offset by (a) the effects of subsequent decreases in poverty rates in those tracts or (b) reductions in the level of problems associated with any given poverty rate. Furthermore, they judge that the policies and conditions that led to the deconcentration of poverty that did occur in the 1990s are still essential for yet more complete deconcentration in the future. Galster gives us no clear indication of how we might change them or any strong motivation for doing so.