Geographic Concentration Of Poverty Research Articles

The Quest for Recognition: Brazilian Immigrants in the United States

'Hispanic' and 'Latino' are imprecise umbrella terms often used in the United States to designate nationals from Central and South America. The labelling of Brazilians in this manner generates inaccurate demographic information, including a significant undercount of the migrant population. Research data indicates that Brazilians object to being designated Hispanics, since Brazilians speak Portuguese and have no Spanish heritage. The labelling of ethnic groups has been criticized as a stereotypical and racist system, which primarily responds to non-scientific demands. This commentary appeals for reform in the way researchers and institutions refer to minority citizens as well as for continued research to investigate racism and ethnic prejudice. The development of new approaches and methodologies to examine social networks, migration and the geographic concentration of poverty is advocated.

Housing Policies and the Concentration of Poverty in Urban AmericaUnfair Housing: How National Policy Shapes Community Action. By Mara S. Sidney. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003. Pp. 200. $35.00 (cloth); $16.95 (paper).Clearing the Way: Deconcentrating the Poor in Urban America. By Edward G. Goetz. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 2003. Pp. 326. $29.50 (paper).

Previous articleNext article No AccessReview EssayHousing Policies and the Concentration of Poverty in Urban America Unfair Housing: How National Policy Shapes Community Action. By Mara S. Sidney. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003. Pp. 200. $35.00 (cloth); $16.95 (paper). Clearing the Way: Deconcentrating the Poor in Urban America. By Edward G. Goetz. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 2003. Pp. 326. $29.50 (paper).Michela M. ZontaMichela M. ZontaVirginia Commonwealth University Search for more articles by this author Virginia Commonwealth UniversityPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Social Service Review Volume 79, Number 1March 2005 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/426722 Views: 100Total views on this site © 2005 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Labor Market Effects of the 1960s Riots

Although the united states has experienced race-related civil disturbances throughout its history, those that occurred in the 1960s were unprecedented in frequency and scope. Between 1964 and 1971, hundreds of riots erupted in American cities, resulting in large numbers of injuries, deaths, and arrests, as well as considerable property damage concentrated in predominantly black neighborhoods. Law enforcement authorities took extraordinary measures to end the riots, sometimes including the mobilization of National Guard units. In retrospect, the riots marked a turning point in American racial politics, as the carefully orchestrated demonstrations of the early civil rights movementgave way to violent, chaotic civil disturbances. At the time of their occurrence, the riots prompted congressional investigations into their proximate and underlying causes and into their immediate consequences in the form of looting, property damage, injuries, and deaths.1 Subsequently, a large sociology literature developed that attempted to identify city-level correlates of the occurrence and [End Page 1] severity of riots.2 But there have been comparatively few studies of a systematic, econometric nature that examine the impact of the riots on the relative economic status of African Americans or on the cities and neighborhoods in which the riots took place.3 In this paper we study the impact of the 1960s riots in the context of long-term racial disparities in labor market outcomes. Among full-time male workers, the racial gap in average earnings narrowed up to 1975, with periods of sharp convergence (for example, the 1940s) alternating with periods of relative stasis (for example, the 1950s and early 1960s). Since 1970, racial convergence in earnings has slowed markedly, and a substantial part of the observed convergence has been driven by the selection of low-income black males out of the full-time labor force.4 Over the same period, the proportion of blacks living in "high poverty" urban neighborhoods increased sharply, and black ghettos turned increasingly "bad" in the sense that residential segregation led to increasingly poor socioeconomic outcomes among young blacks.5 The post-1970 rise in concentrated poverty in black central-city neighborhoods has received a great deal of scholarly attention. One prominent view, associated with the work of William Julius Wilson, is that the underlying causes of this adverse trend are essentially macroeconomic in nature.6 Technological change and the relative decline of manufacturing employment may have reduced relatively high-wage job openings for urban, unskilled workers. The geographic concentration of poverty was then reinforced by the movement of relatively well-off blacks from central-city neighborhoods to suburbs and the proliferation of single-parent [End Page 2] households. Another prominent view, associated primarily with the work of Massey and Denton, emphasizes that preexisting residential segregation and ongoing racial discrimination in housing allowed for the potent endogenous magnification of adverse economic shocks. Feedback among macroeconomic forces, residential segregation, and social norms may have pushed entire neighborhoods into a downward socioeconomic spiral.7 The hypothesis we are pursuing is that the riots may be examples of such negative shocks. Like any shock, some of a riot's impact will be felt directly—in this case, by individuals who were immediately affected by the event. To some extent, these effects may be offset by private sector responses (for example, insurance payments) or changes in government policies (subsidies or loans to riot-afflicted businesses or infrastructure investment in riot areas). But other, and potentially much larger, effects may be indirect. A riot might alter the course of a city's economy by influencing the economic decisions of individuals who were not directly affected by the event. In essence, the hypothesis under investigation has two parts: that a riot's effect on African Americans' labor market outcomes was, on net, negative; and that the magnitude of the local effect increased with the severity of the local riot. We present two complementary...

Race, Segregation, and the Concentration of Disadvantage: 1980-1990

This article examines variation across cities in the geographic concentration of poverty, male joblessness, and female-headed families for Blacks and Whites. For each racial group, we describe the scope and analyze the sources of concentrated disadvantage along these dimensions for 1980 and 1990, and for changes between these two years. We explore whether patterns found in past research regarding poverty concentration are generalizable to the concentration of other aspects of disadvantage, including joblessness. Analysis of the sources of concentrated disadvantage focus on the differential role of racial residential segregation for explaining variation in concentrated disadvantage between Blacks and Whites. These relationships are evaluated while accounting for other economic and sociodemographic conditions. We find that: between 1980 and 1990 Black and White disadvantage became more geographically concentrated along some dimensions (poverty and female-headed families) but not others (male joblessness); no matter which dimension is explored, African Americans have a substantially higher concentration of disadvantage than Whites; and, racial residential segregation is critical for understanding concentrated disadvantage and especially for explaining why disadvantaged Blacks are so much more geographically concentrated than disadvantaged Whites.

Geographic Concentration of Affluence and Poverty in 100 Metropolitan Areas, 1990

The geographic concentration of poverty and affluence is examined for the 100 largest metropolitan areas. Concentration of poverty and affluence are uncorrelated, but metropolitan areas can be classified into five types based on six indices of concentration and affluence. The types differ significantly in their racial and ethnic segregation, the relative advantage of the central city as compared to the suburbs, and the economic inequality in the population. Cities in which both affluence and poverty are highly concentrated differ along all dimensions from cities of the more egalitarian type.

Migration, Segregation, and the Geographic Concentration of Poverty

We analyze patterns of African-American mobility and white mobility in U.S. cities to determine the causes of geographically concentrated poverty. Using a special tabulation of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics that appends U.S. Census tract data to individual records we analyze the movement of poor and nonpoor people into and out of five types of neighborhoods: white nonpoor black nonpoor black poor black very poor and racially and socioeconomically mixed neighborhoods. We find little support for the view that the geographic concentration of black poverty is caused by the out-migration of nonpoor blacks or that it stems from the net movement of blacks into poverty. Rather our results suggest that the geographic concentration of poor blacks is caused by the residential segregation of African-Americans in urban housing markets. (EXCERPT)

Geographic Concentration of Poverty and Risk to Children in Urban Neighborhoods

Geographic Concentration of Poverty and Risk to Children in Urban Neighborhoods

The Ecology of Inequality: Minorities and the Concentration of Poverty, 1970-1980

This article examines trends in the geographic concentration of poverty among whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians in 60 U.S. mentropolitan areas from 1970 to 1980. It describes changes in the distributional structure of income, the extent of income inequality, and the degree of spatial segretation by income. These factors are then related to levels and trends in poverty concentration. Concentrated urban poverty is confined principally to blacks outside the West and to Hispanics in the Northeast. Poverty concentration among these groups does not reflect a tendency for upper-status minority members to live apart from the poor but an interaction between changes in the distributional structure ov income and patterns of racial/ethnic segregation. The occurence of rising poverty under conditions of high racial/ethnic segregation explains the growing spatial isolation of poor blacks and hispanic in U.S. urban society.