Gateway to Opportunity? Disparities in Neighborhood Conditions Among Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Residents

A key goal of housing assistance programs is to help lower income households reach neighborhoods of opportunity. Studies have described the degree to which Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) developments are located in high-opportunity neighborhoods, but our focus is on how neighborhood outcomes vary across different subsets of LIHTC residents. We also examine whether LIHTC households are better able to reach certain types of neighborhood opportunities. Specifically, we use new data on LIHTC tenants in 12 states along with eight measures of neighborhood opportunity. We find that compared with other rental units, LIHTC units are located in neighborhoods with higher poverty rates, weaker labor markets, more polluted environments, and lower performing schools, but better transit access. We also find that compared with other LIHTC tenants, poor and minority tenants live in neighborhoods that are significantly more disadvantaged.     

我国城市社区直接选举探究

社区居委会直接选举作为扩大基层民主的有效形式,已经成为全面推进城市基层民主的突破口,受到社会各界越来越多的关注。本文选取社区居委会直接选举中的两个环节进行分析,梳理了社区选举过程中的程序规范及存在问题,以期进一步推进城市社区居委会直接选举的程序化、公平化。     

POLICE DISRESPECT TOWARD THE PUBLIC: AN ENCOUNTER‐BASED ANALYSIS*

We use observations of police encounters with 3,130 suspects in Indianapolis and St. Petersburg to estimate three influences on police disrespect: how suspects behave, their personal characteristics, and the location of the encounter. Logistic regression models show that suspects' behaviors were the most powerful predictors, but the suspect's sex, age, income, and degree of neighborhood disadvantage were also significant. Minority suspects experienced disrespect less often than whites (statistically significant in the hierarchical analysis controlling for degree of neighborhood disadvantage). These effects are concentrated in St. Petersburg, where the chief had made the suppression of police abuses a visible priority. The findings offer partial confirmation of Donald Black's theory of law.     

首都大周边社会维稳应急处置机制的构建

在国家经济转轨、社会转型的大背景下，各种社会矛盾凸现，影响安全稳定的不确定性因素日益增多，因此，需要从信息调控、组织协同、沟通交流、物质保障等四大机制建设出发，构建首都大周边社会维稳应急处置机制，及时化解各类不稳定因素，这不仅有利于为首都经济建设发展提供良好的社会环境．而且对维护首都乃至整个国家的长治久安具有重大意义。     

Can You Talk between the Lines？

EVERY Chinese is proud of their country＇s 5,000 years of cultural his tory. However, if people from the Western world were to interpret this culture in the wrong way, it would be quite difficult to communicate. Bearing in mind the cultural differences, many expats will have encountered conversational awkwardness with Chinese employees or colleagues.     

Preserving Community Assets: Do Foreclosure Sales Need to Negatively Impact the Neighborhood?

Research has linked concentrated foreclosures with negative neighborhood outcomes; for instance, increased crime and decreased property values. These outcomes drain community asset holdings and impact the longer term trajectory of the neighborhood. However, data reported in this article from a Boston study challenge the assumption that negative neighborhood outcomes are a foregone conclusion in the face of foreclosures. Analysis of interviews with real estate agents and other foreclosure professionals, neighborhood ethnographic observation, and citywide sales and foreclosure sales documents demonstrate that the distinct nature of the foreclosure sales process creates market disruptions heightening the risk for documented negative neighborhood outcomes. Attempts by the seller to reduce financial risks in the sale increase the likelihood of vacancy and create a market oriented toward investor–buyers. Understanding the risk preferences of key decision makers in the foreclosure sale process reveals new intervention points—such as intervening at the short sale, or expanding and updating foreclosure laws to reflect current foreclosure sales markets—to reduce market disruptions and preserve community assets in the face of foreclosures.     

DO NEIGHBORHOODS GENERATE FEAR OF CRIME? AN EMPIRICAL TEST USING THE BRITISH CRIME SURVEY*

For a long time, criminologists have contended that neighborhoods are important determinants of how individuals perceive their risk of criminal victimization. Yet, despite the theoretical importance and policy relevance of these claims, the empirical evidence base is surprisingly thin and inconsistent. Drawing on data from a national probability sample of individuals, linked to independent measures of neighborhood demographic characteristics, visual signs of physical disorder, and reported crime, we test four hypotheses about the mechanisms through which neighborhoods influence fear of crime. Our large sample size, analytical approach, and the independence of our empirical measures enable us to overcome some of the limitations that have hampered much previous research into this question. We find that neighborhood structural characteristics, visual signs of disorder, and recorded crime all have direct and independent effects on individual‐level fear of crime. Additionally, we demonstrate that individual differences in fear of crime are strongly moderated by neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics; between‐group differences in expressed fear of crime are both exacerbated and ameliorated by the characteristics of the areas in which people live.     

NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT AND NONLINEAR PEER EFFECTS ON ADOLESCENT VIOLENT CRIME*

Although evidence of the strong correlation between deviant behavior and exposure to deviant peers is overwhelming, researchers have yet to investigate whether a nonlinear functional form better captures this relationship than does a linear form. Researchers also have yet to examine the extent to which peer effects vary as a function of the neighborhood context. To address these issues, we use data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) to examine 1) the functional form of the relationship between peer violence exposure and self‐reported violent crime and 2) the extent to which the effect of exposure to violent peers on violence is ecologically structured. Estimates from logistic hierarchical models indicate that the effect of peer violence exposure on violent crime decreases at higher values of peer violence, as reflected in a nonlinear relationship (expressed in terms of log‐odds). Furthermore, exposure to violent peers increases along with neighborhood disadvantage, and the effect of peer violence exposure on violent crime is attenuated as neighborhood disadvantage increases, which is reflected in a cross‐level peer violence/disadvantage interaction.     

Cognitive Skills,Adolescent Violence,and the Moderating Role of Neighborhood Disadvantage

Numerous studies uncover a link between cognitive skills and adolescent violence. Overlooked is whether the relationship changes at varying levels of neighborhood disadvantage. We examine the issue by contrasting two models that place individual difference in cognitive skill within a social‐structural framework. Using five waves of the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a three‐level hierarchical model, results indicate that cognitive skill is inversely associated with violence and that the relationship is strongest in non‐disadvantaged neighborhoods. However, the cognitive skills–violence relationship is indistinguishable from zero in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. The findings are therefore consistent with the hypothesis that social expression of developed ability is muted in disadvantaged contexts.     

ESCAPING CRIME: THE EFFECTS OF DIRECT AND INDIRECT VICTIMIZATION ON MOVING*

This article investigates the impact of criminal victimization on household residential mobility. Existing research finds that direct experiences with crime influence mobility decisions, such that persons who suffer offenses near their homes are more likely to move. The current study extends this line of inquiry to consider whether indirect victimization that involves neighbors also stimulates moving. The analysis uses the National Crime Survey to estimate multilevel models that incorporate data from individual households and their spatially proximate neighbors. The results show that the link between direct victimization and moving continues to hold after controlling for neighborhood context. Indirect property victimization also leads to moving, with effects about equal in size to those of direct victimization. In contrast, no evidence is found that violent victimization that occurs in neighboring homes influences mobility, probably because most of these events are nonstranger violence that provokes less anxiety for neighbors.