National Support For Regional Review: Federal Compliance and The Future of Intergovernmental Coordination

In 1969, OMB issued Circular A-95 to broaden the "confidentialexchange" between applicants and federal agencies, to providestate and local clearinghouses an opportunity to review federalassistance applications. Because President Reagan recently signedExecutive Order 12372 revoking A-95 and making states responsiblefor procedures governing regional coordination of federal programs,this is a useful time to analyze and evaluate the A-95 experience.Any review process somehow must solve the three critical, overlappingproblems which plagued A-95 from the outset: unpredictable andinsufficient funding, vague review criteria, and poor federalcompliance. This article focuses on federal noncompliance: theextent of agency violations, structural and political reasonsfor noncompliance, and the success of efforts to modify andimprove the system. The study draws on a 1981 survey of RegionV areawide clearinghouses and the author's experience as a 1980–1981NASPAA Faculty Fellow with the Chicago Federal Regional Council.     

Roberts: Public Entrepreneurship and Innovation

This article presents a conceptualframeworkofpublic entrepreneurship. Public entrepreneurship is defined as the generation ofa novel or innuuative idea and the design and implementation of the innovative idea into publicsector practice. The conceptualfiamework is used to distinguish between public entrepreneurs and other actors in the policy process, and to clarify the differences between policy, political, executive, and bureaucratic entrepreneurs. Taking a functionalist perspective, the article difmentintes between individual and coZkctiue entrepreneurship and ginezates pmpaitims to move us cher to a theory of public entrepreneurship.     

Racial Inequality,Ethnic Inequality,and the System Involvement of At-Risk Youth: Implications for the Racial Invariance and Latino Paradox Theses

Drawing from the inequality and crime, racial invariance, and Latino paradox literatures, the effects of inequality on youth reoffending are examined. Specifically, hierarchical logistic regression models are estimated to determine: (1) whether racial and ethnic inequality have similar contextual effects on the continued delinquent behavior of at-risk youth and (2) whether these effects are specific to black or Latino/a youth residing in Maricopa County, Arizona (N = 13,138). Findings suggest that racial inequality increases reoffending while ethnic inequality decreases reoffending. Additionally, Latino/a youth are less likely to reoffend in areas characterized by high income and racial inequality. Structural theories of crime should continue to account for the importance of culture and the resilient responses employed by Latinos/as living in criminogenic environments.     

Neighborhood Opportunity and Location Affordability for Low-Income Renter Families

Abstract

We use the Location Affordability Index (LAI) and the newly developed Child Opportunity Index (COI) to assess, for the first time, the tradeoff between neighborhood opportunity and housing/transportation affordability facing low-income renter families in the 100 largest metropolitan areas. In addition to describing the opportunity/affordability relationship, we explore the level of balance between neighborhoods’ relative cost burden and their corresponding opportunity levels to determine whether children of different racial/ethnic groups are more (or less) likely to experience cost-opportunity imbalance. Our multilevel analyses show that housing affordability is largely accounted for by the neighborhood opportunity structure within each metropolitan area. The metropolitan characteristics examined account for only a small proportion of the between-metro variance in the opportunity/affordability gradient for housing, presumably because the neighborhood opportunity structure already reflects metro area factors such as fragmentation and segregation. On the other hand, transportation affordability shows a weaker association with neighborhood opportunity. The COI/LAI association is much weaker for transportation than for housing, and a large part of the variation in the transportation gradient occurs at the metropolitan area level, not the neighborhood level. Sprawl is particularly associated with transportation affordability, with lower sprawl areas having lower transportation-cost burden. We discuss the implications of the empirical findings for defining affordability in housing assistance programs. We recommend that housing policy for low-income renter families adopt an expanded notion of affordability (housing, transportation, and opportunity) and explicitly consider equity (e.g. cost-opportunity imbalance) in the implementation of this expanded affordability definition.