Geography Of Opportunity Research Articles

Racialized Closures and the Shuttering of Black Schools: Evidence from National Data

In this article Danielle Marie Greene-Bell and Francis A. Pearman II examine racial disparities in school closures across the United States, with a particular interest in majority Black schools. Using survival analysis and longitudinal data, they find that majority Black schools are far more likely to close than non-majority Black schools and that these elevated closure rates are not fully accounted for by observable differences like achievement levels, enrollment patterns, and the socioeconomic status of their surrounding communities. Using the theoretical frame of BlackQuantCrit, they argue that this pattern of findings is consistent with the theory that school closures demonstrate historical and contemporary forms of anti-Blackness that affect US schools and the geography of opportunity more broadly.

Who has Access to Atlanta’s Geography of Opportunity?

Who has Access to Atlanta’s Geography of Opportunity?

Who has Access to Atlanta’s Geography of Opportunity?

Who has Access to Atlanta’s Geography of Opportunity?

Reconsidering Rural-Nonrural College Enrollment Gaps: The Role of Socioeconomic Status in Geographies of Opportunity.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11162-023-09737-8 .

Perceptions and imaginaries about the fourth industrial revolution between geographies of opportunity and discontent: Some reflections on the Italian case

AbstractThe pervasiveness of advanced technologies and their disruptive impact on society have spurred the debate on the emergence of a new industrial revolution and on its positive and negative effects, both at an individual and spatial level. This paper aims to contribute to this debate, focusing attention on the perception of changes related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution and exploring new methods of analysis of the manifestations of both techno‐enthusiasm and opposition to it. Starting from the extensive literature in this field, the work adopts two research perspectives: the study of imaginaries and narratives developed around the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which convey different messages from social groups and places; the geographies of opportunity and discontent, which address the resentment expressed by some localities towards advanced technological models and growing inequalities. In this work the Fourth Industrial Revolution is not interpreted through data about the technological variables or interviews to protagonists of the phenomenon; rather, emphasis is on the points of view of non‐institutional subjects and, in particular, the opinions expressed by people on the Web. For this reason, the sentiment analysis has been adopted to identify both positive and negative polarities and the relevance of specific feelings through the selection of key words related to the notion of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The empirical analysis based on this methodology focuses on the Italian case in a specific period (first and second phase of the pandemic, from January 2020 to September 2021) and, at a local level, on the comparison between four medium‐sized cities (Pisa, Lecce, Taranto and Terni). This paper also tries to extend recent contributions through the provision of new perspectives for the definition of policies designed with the involvement of the population and places regarding both the processes of technological change and the definition of new socio‐spatial models.

Mapping opportunity in time and space: An inductive approach

Several authors delineate “geographies of opportunity,” which are assumed to influence individual life courses. In transport geography and related subjects, “opportunity” is a term that is frequently used to circumscribe dynamics of spatial and social mobility. However, previous approaches to opportunity usually apply deductive reasoning in such a way that opportunity represents a local feature whose functional utility impacts individual lives. Such approaches are inadequate for the analysis of individual life courses, as neither the emergence of opportunity nor its meaning for individual motives is sufficiently incorporated. Such neglect may lead to insufficient or even incorrect conclusions about the relation of space, mobility and the life course, because a concept for systematic mappings of opportunities in both individual life courses and space has not yet been developed. This paper aims to reconceptualize opportunity as a personally and socially experienced interrelation between agents and their socio-spatial environment with beneficial outcomes for the respective life courses. With regard to mapping opportunity, pockets of local order and occasions are presented as mappable spatiotemporal entities. Occasions are sections in timespace, which are unique and meaningful to the development of the individual life course. Finally, we discuss implications for empirical application, future research, planning and policy.

Promoting a geography of opportunity in Accra, Ghana: Applying lessons from mixed-income development successes and shortcomings

ABSTRACT Urban poverty in both the developed and developing world is often spatially organized with deprivation highly concentrated in segregated areas of cities. With the rapid urbanization and lack of effective urban planning in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa, segregation, economic deprivation and social exclusion are particularly severe challenges. In the United States, almost 30 years of poverty deconcentration policy has had mixed results and offers cautions to other countries looking to confront urban segregation. Accra, the capital city of Ghana, offers an intriguing example of a city with substantial clusters of poverty and slum areas, but also some neighborhoods with high existing levels of economic integration. Drawing on the theoretical and empirical context of poverty deconcentration efforts in the United States, this paper presents a conceptual framework with two alternative pathways for urban development: an inclusionary pathway and an exclusionary pathway. We use this framework to review and critique Ghana’s existing urban policy and offer implications for inclusionary urban policy in Accra and other similar cities in developing countries.

Analysis of Land Development Drivers Using Geographically Weighted Ridge Regression

Land development processes are driven by complex interactions between socio-economic and spatial factors. Acquiring an understanding of such processes and the underlying procedures helps urban and regional planners, environmental scientists, and policy makers to base their decisions on valid and profound information. In this work, remote-sensing-derived land-cover data were used to characterize the patterns of land development from the beginning of 1985 to the beginning of 2015, in the state of West Virginia (WV), US. We applied spatial pattern analysis, ridge regression, and Geographically Weighted Ridge Regression (GWRR) to examine the impact of population, energy resources, existing land developments dynamics, and economic status on land transformation. We showed that in presence of multicollinearity of explanatory variables, how penalizing regression models in both local and global levels lead to a better fit and decreases the model’s variance. We used geographical error analysis of regression models to visualize the difference between the model estimates and actual values. The findings of this research indicate that because of shifting geography of opportunities, the patterns and processes of land development in the studied region are unstable. This leads to fragmented land developments and prevents formation of large communities.

Race and the Geography of Opportunity in the Post-Prison Labor Market.

Research on racial disparities in post-prison employment has primarily focused on the differential effects of stigma on blacks and whites, but we otherwise know little about racial differences. This paper examines racial differences in post-prison employment by industry and geography. We find that the formerly incarcerated are most likely to find work in a small number of "felon-friendly" industries with formerly incarcerated whites having higher employment rates than blacks. Whites are more likely to be employed in felon-friendly industries associated with the primary labor market, particularly construction and manufacturing, which have higher wages and more job stability. To explain these racial differences, we investigate the degree to which employment among the formerly incarcerated is related to where felon-friendly employers are located and where individuals who work in felon-friendly industries live. We find that post-prison employment is associated more with proximity to workers in felon-friendly industries than with proximity to employers. Because formerly incarcerated whites are more likely to live near current workers in felon-friendly industries, the geography of opportunity in the post-prison labor market contributes to the racial disparity in post-prison employment.

Well-Placed: The Geography of Opportunity and High School Effects on College Attendance

Recent work has broadened the scope of school effectiveness research to consider not only academic achievement but also other outcomes, especially college attendance. This literature has argued that high schools are an important determinant of college attendance, with some contending that high schools matter more for college attendance than for academic achievement. A separate branch of research has illustrated how place-based opportunities facilitate college attendance. We merge these two literatures by asking if schools’ geographic context can explain apparent variation in effectiveness among Wisconsin high schools. We find that geographic context explains more than a quarter of the variance in traditional estimates of school effectiveness on college attendance, because factors like proximity to colleges are strongly associated with college attendance. Accounting for geography is therefore important in order not to overstate high schools’ role in higher education outcomes. Results are based on multilevel models applied to rich administrative data on every Wisconsin public high school entrant between 2006 and 2011.

Place Matters: A Critical Review of Place Inquiry and Spatial Methods in Education Research

Place is an inescapable aspect of daily life and is intimately linked to our life experiences. An expanding body of research has investigated how place shapes the “geography of opportunity” as well as students’, families’, and stakeholders’ experiences in and around schools. While researchers have begun to investigate the spatial context of education, the notion of place remains somewhat underconceptualized in education research. This chapter draws on an interdisciplinary review of 60 empirical, education-related studies to understand how researchers have accounted for place, the theoretical and conceptual frames in which they ground their work, and their data collection methods. We find that researchers have used place inquiry and spatial methods to investigate diverse education-related phenomena, such as school choice and teaching and learning. Beyond using place to identify and describe inequalities, we argue that place inquiry and spatial methodologies can strengthen the potential of education research to disrupt systems of power and oppression by also advancing our knowledge of the nature of and potential solutions to educational injustice.

The function and credibility of urban slums: Evidence on informal settlements and affordable housing in Chile

Abstract In recent decades, governments and international organizations have made strong efforts to promote homeownership among low-income households. However, in many countries, informal housing arrangements persist. A strong reason for this is emphasized in the “credibility thesis” which posits that informal settlements play a functional role and serve informal dwellers by supplying other valuable attributes that formal housing may not provide. Based on a comprehensive survey of 1588 households living in 69 irregular settlements and 32 subsidized housing projects in Santiago, Chile, we analyze the functionality of informal settlements by examining two hitherto under-researched indicators for credibility: residents' perceptions on location and neighborhood security. Results show that in the low-income housing sector some individuals may prefer to live in an informal settlement because these places are more functional with respect to some relevant urban attributes to which they give more weight. In effect, households living in informal settlements are less willing to move from their current municipal district, are closer to jobs, and report lower rates of neighborhood vandalism relative to those living in formal subsidized housing projects. This is related to the fact that in Chile many individuals who have had access to affordable housing have moved to segregated urban areas. The results show that even within well-functioning urban areas where there is strong protection to private property rights, urban informality may still provide a better geography of opportunities than formal homeownership.

The power of place: spatializing critical mathematics education

ABSTRACT Place-based education has traditionally had a limited focus on mathematics, and critical mathematics education often lacks explicit attention to place and space. We explore integrating theories of place, spatial justice, and critical mathematics education. To begin, we consider various frameworks of place—including Indigenous, urban, and critical perspectives—to situate a discussion on how place acts as a shaping force on social relations like race, gender, and sexuality, and, conversely, how social relations shape place. We include mathematics as a category of social relations in that guiding framework. We next summarize and build on various notions of place and spatial justice, toward their integration with critical mathematics education. In so doing, we present teaching mathematics for spatial justice, or using mathematics 1) to identify power relations in and through place and 2) to transform the world by re-imagining and remaking place. We sidestep a false urban-rural divide and instead, illustrate the potential of teaching mathematics for spatial justice using rich examples organized around four thematic categories: geographies of opportunity, mapping, human mobility, and land relations and obligations.

Toward Engaged, Equitable, and Smart Communities: Lessons From West Baltimore

ABSTRACT Smart city investments are happening in many cities around the United States. All too often, however, smart city interventions are solutions in search of problems, rather than solutions that seek to meet the needs of cities and their most vulnerable residents. This study asks how the engagement of communities can help to improve smart city investments that aim to address the needs and concerns of low-income communities of color. Through focus groups and surveys in West Baltimore, Maryland, the research showed how smart city technologies can aid residents in navigating uneven regional geographies of opportunity, addressing the existing digital divide, and developing plans that leverage their creative problem-solving capacities and existing uses of technology to address critical community needs and priorities. The study reveals how engaging communities at the front end of planning switches the focus away from technology-driven solutions to more equitable, community-centered, and place-based smart city plans and investments.

Mezcla social e integración urbana: aproximaciones teóricas y discusión del caso chileno

Social mix, in general terms, denotes the social diversity of a certain geographic area, being this economic, racial, ethnic, cultural, etc. Social mix is an old and persistent ideal of planning (marked by normative pretensions), has been achieved through different means, has been proposed to reach a wide variety of goals, and has been used interchangeably to refer to concepts like 'integration', 'mixed-income communities', 'poverty deconcentration', 'balanced communities', etc. There has been abundant literature from the 1990s, to the extent that it is one of the most researched topics in urban studies. At present, the discussion on social mix revolves around five key concepts: contact hypothesis, social networks, social control, role models, and geographies of opportunity. In Chile, from 2006 there have been social mix policies, with the expectation that physical proximity between different social groups could facilitate integration. In this article we review the concept of social mix from a historical and comparative perspective, and then we study Chilean policies under the five mentioned concepts, showing the low efficacy that these projects have had in meeting the proposed goals.

The Geography of Opportunity 20 Years Later

My career-long intellectual project has been to understand how our human-built environments—at the dwelling, neighborhood, and metropolitan scales—serve as crucibles for human development, achievem...

The Cartography of Opportunity: Spatial Data Science for Equitable Urban Policy

As evidence of the contextual effects of place upon individual outcomes has become increasingly solid over time, so too have urban policies and programs designed to connect underserved people with access to spatial opportunity. To this end, many attempts have been made to quantify the geography of opportunity and quite literally plot it on a map by combining evidence from studies on neighborhood effects with spatial data resources and geographic information systems (GIS) technology. Recently, these opportunity maps have not only become increasingly common but their preparation has been encouraged and facilitated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. A closer look at the foundations and methods that underlie these exercises offers important lessons I examine the practice of opportunity mapping from both theoretical and methodological perspectives, highlighting several weaknesses of the common methods. Following this, I outline a theoretical framework based on Galster’s categorization of the mechanisms of neighborhood effects. Using data from the Baltimore metropolitan region, I use confirmatory factor analysis to specify a measurement model that verifies the validity of the proposed theoretical framework. The model provides estimates of four latent variables conceived as the essential dimensions of spatial opportunity: social-interactive, environmental, geographic, and institutional. Finally, I develop a neighborhood typology using unsupervised machine learning applied to the four dimensions of opportunity. Results suggest that opportunity mapping can be improved substantially through a better connection to the empirical literature on neighborhood effects, a multivariate statistical framework, and more direct relevance to public policy interventions.

Tourist territorialisation and geographies of opportunity at the edges of mass destinations

ABSTRACTGeographies of tourism often highlight tourism's tendency to exclude or displace local economic actors. Tourism enclaves tend to be particularly exclusive at destination sites and urban centres. This study looks at the edge of a mass tourism town centre and investigates how landowners, entrepreneurs and employees retain a foothold in the face of tourism expansion. Conducted in 2014–2015, this microgeography of a tourist backstreet in Siem Reap, Cambodia comprises a survey of 73 of the occupants and over 40 follow-up interviews complemented by a photographic record of 135 premises. It found most local landowners retaining their properties, and only engaging strategically and selectively with the tourism economy. Entrepreneurial opportunities were initially taken by migrants from other provinces, and then, as tourism expanded, by foreigners and by local entrepreneurs with experience of employment in established tourism businesses. This study illustrates how tourism's territorialisation of back regions is quite different from that of front regions. Even in relatively impoverished settings, pre-tourism economic activities and business cultures may contribute to local actors being able to achieve relatively secure footholds in hybridised space at the edges tourism booms.

Worlds of Work: Changing Landscapes of Production and the New Geographies of Opportunity

AbstractThis paper provides a critical overview of major trends impacting labor standards in the global economy. On the production side, these include the increasing financialization of capital, internationalization of production networks, and informalization of employment. These processes interact with changes within labor markets resulting from a doubling of the number of workers who comprise the labor pool available within the capitalist system as well as increases in international migration. The paper concludes by considering emerging approaches that are being developed by workers' rights organizations, labor unions, and advocacy organizations to organize workers' and improve labor protections.

Spatial location of place-based subsidized households and uneven geography of opportunities: case of Austin, Texas in the US

As an alternative to traditional public housing programs, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program has been the dominant federal affordable housing program in the US. However, we have empirically limited understanding as to whether the LIHTC program promotes locational options that offer better socioeconomic opportunities for low-income families. This paper examines the relationships between the spatial location of public housing and LIHTC households and sociodemographic characteristics of neighborhoods in Austin, Texas. We find that both public housing and LIHTC households are located in disadvantaged neighborhoods, especially in terms of higher minority populations, poverty, unemployment, female-headed family, welfare receipt, teenage school dropouts, and lower income. Furthermore, our study shows that the location of public housing and LIHTC households is associated with concentrated crime. However, after accounting for the geographic and sociodemographic characteristics of neighborhoods, only neighborhoods where LIHTC households are located are significantly related to concentrated crime incidents.