Welfare Neighborhoods: Anatomy of a Concept

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper conceptualizes welfare neighborhoods–places where welfare payments have deeply insinuated themselves into the local economy and survival strategies of the poor. Moving beyond Wilson's concept of concentrated poverty, I recognize the diversity and heterogeneity of impoverished neighborhoods, as well as more fully develop the relationship between welfare and place. I propose three welfare neighborhood types–the jobless ghetto, immigrant enclave and service-dependent ghetto–which are then explored using 2000 census data and a k-means cluster analysis. I identify and map the three sets of welfare neighborhoods in the two most populous urban jurisdictions in the United States, New York City and Los Angeles County. In the conclusion, I emphasize the pressing issue of federal welfare reform, of how its most recent phase further thrusts welfare neighborhoods into the unfamiliar role of being catalysts for job creation and personal transformation.