Identifying neighborhood thresholds: An empirical exploration

Abstract

In this article, we investigate the threshold‐like effects of four aspects of neighborhood environment: poverty rate, adult nonemployment rate, female headship rate for families with children, and secondary school dropout rate. We used a sample consisting of virtually all census tracts from U.S. metropolitan areas. The relationship between the value of numerous neighborhood indicators in 1980 and subsequent changes in each of the four dimensions of neighborhood quality of family life from 1980 to 1990 was evaluated statistically using a regression model with a spline specification to test for nonlinear, threshold‐like processes.

Stressing the exploratory nature of the study, we find evidence of threshold‐like effects in an endodynamic relationship (poverty rate and subsequent changes in that rate), and in exodynamic relationships (occupational status and rental rates and subsequent changes in several neighborhood quality indicators). Implications for research and a spatially targeted neighborhood reinvestment policy are derived from the analysis.     

Assets and neighborhoods: The role of individual assets in neighborhood revitalization

Abstract

Asset‐building strategies—including individual development accounts, homeownership programs, and microenterprise development—became increasingly popular in the 1990s. Although research has demonstrated how assets produce individual benefits, less is known about the extent to which these benefits induce positive place‐based effects. We develop a model of the relationship between individual asset‐building strategies and neighborhood revitalization in order to inform future empirical work and help ensure that asset accumulation and neighborhood revitalization are mutually reinforcing. Our model emphasizes the conditions and programmatic factors that may encourage and discourage the transfer of benefits from individuals to neighborhoods.

Examples from case studies of four community‐based organizations suggest that the likelihood of neighborhood spillovers may be increased if policies and practices aim to “manage” the returns from the individual asset, retain asset holders, provide reinvestment conduits, track local purchasing power, and create additional opportunities for collective action.     

Assessing Economic Change in HOPE VI Neighborhoods

Abstract

Neighborhoods surrounding large public housing developments have historically been economically distressed. The revitalization of many developments through the federal HOPE VI program, in conjunction with increased inner‐city lending and a strong economy for much of the 1990s, should theoretically lead to improvements in these neighborhoods. This study analyzes changes in selected HOPE VI neighborhoods since 1990 and compares them with changes in other high‐poverty communities, as well as with overall trends in their respective cities.

At the beginning of the decade, conditions in HOPE VI communities were almost universally worse than in other high‐poverty areas. By the end of the decade, the relationship was reversed. The changes resulted from a number of interrelated factors, including the redevelopments themselves, other private market activity, specific commitments of resources by city governments, and increased attention to the communities by lenders. These neighborhoods still qualify as economically distressed, but economic development now seems a realistic possibility.     

Working together: Building capacity for community development

Abstract

Community development partnerships (CDPs)—local intermediaries that gather support from foundations, corporations, and the public sector—are giving increased attention to building the capacity of community development corporations (CDCs). This article evaluates CDPs’ efforts to help nonprofit CDCs increase their capacity to revitalize low‐income communities. We identified five types of capacity and conducted interviews and focus groups with CDPs and CDCs across the nation. The nature of capacity and capacity building among CDCs, the ways partnerships help increase CDC capacity, what the partnerships and CDCs learn from each other, and how they could better gauge the effectiveness of capacity‐building support were discussed.

We learned that CDCs and CDPs have forged an effective alliance and continue to work together: Community organizations require help in building capacity, and local partnerships provide the requisite funding, technical assistance, and other elements to help them grow and serve their neighborhoods.     

Does mobility matter? The neighborhood conditions of housing voucher holders by race and ethnicity

Abstract

Mobility is one mechanism used to address the federal goals of deconcen‐trating poverty and minorities. The Housing Choice Voucher Program relies on participants to make residential location decisions consistent with these goals. Our research investigates the level and impact of mobility on the neighborhood quality of voucher holders, their neighborhood conditions by race and ethnicity, and perceived obstacles to mobility within the jurisdiction of a Southern California housing authority.

About one‐third of the sample moved during the study, and moving resulted in improved neighborhoods for only one subset of movers. Minorities live in more impoverished, overcrowded neighborhoods than nonminorities, even when controlling for mobility status, contract rent, and other factors. Further, most voucher holders see the lack of rental units as a major obstacle to mobility. These findings suggest that current policy is not uniformly achieving deconcentration and that real and perceived barriers to mobility exist, especially for minorities.     

The residential preferences of blacks and whites: A four‐metropolis analysis

Abstract

Three hypotheses seek to explain the persistence of residential segregation between blacks and whites in the United States: economic differentials, discrimination in housing and lending markets, and neighborhood preferences. The preferences hypothesis posits that both races wish to live in racially homogeneous neighborhoods. This article examines the preferences hypothesis by using recent interview data from metropolitan Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles.

Race continues to be significant in the residential decision‐making process. Whites’ willingness to move into a neighborhood is inversely related to the density of blacks living there. Blacks prefer integrated neighborhoods, but ones with a substantial representation of blacks. Preferences differ significantly from one metropolis to another, with Detroit representing the extreme. In the other three metropolises, the preferences of blacks and whites do overlap sufficiently to offer hope for a decline in segregation, provided that the influence of other forces, particularly discrimination, also declines.     

Social capital and neighborhood stability: An empirical investigation

Abstract

There is a growing consensus among urban analysts that inner‐city neighborhoods suffer from a lack of social capital. Because these areas do not have a strong social infrastructure in place to support successful revitalization efforts, urban policy recommendations now call for developing social capital in the worst‐off parts of our cities. However, this consensus has been reached without any empirical analysis of the effect of social capital on urban neighborhoods. Moreover, there have been few, if any, efforts to show how to measure social capital at a neighborhood level.

This article proposes a social capital model of neighborhood change that measures social capital as a function of two constitutive elements: sociocultural milieu and institutional infrastructure. In addition, we present a theoretical model to show how social capital affects neighborhood stability and an empirical analysis that provides evidence of the positive effect social capital has on neighborhood stability.     

Brown kids in white suburbs: Housing mobility and the many faces of social capital

Abstract

Social capital has many faces in the geography of urban opportunity, and as such, particular housing policies might have positive effects on some forms of social capital and negative effects on others. The author defines social support and social leverage as two key dimensions of social capital that can be accessed by individuals. A sample of 132 low‐income African‐American and Latino adolescents is used to examine the early impacts of a Yonkers, NY, housing mobility program on social capital.¹

Overall, program participants (^‘’movers^‘’) appear to be no more cut off from social support than a control group of “stayer” youth. On the other hand, movers are also no more likely to report access to good sources of job information or school advice— to leverage that might enhance opportunity. Adding just one steadily employed adult to an adolescent's circle of significant ties has dramatic effects on perceived access to such leverage.     

The legacy of the home owners’ loan corporation

Abstract

The appraisal practices of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) and its Residential Security Maps are often cited as major contributors to later redlining and the perpetuation of segregation through unequal access to mortgage credit. This article focuses on whether there was a relationship between the HOLC's neighborhood assessments and mortgage outcomes.

Our results indicate that the agency was clearly instrumental in restructuring the home finance system and permitting far greater access to homeowner‐ship, but it is important to consider other factors in examining the HOLC's legacy in the reshaping of the mortgage market and the operation of the financial sector after the Great Depression. Specifically, the issue of increasing segregation in older cities in the late 20th century remains inextricably linked to both the shifting nature of real estate finance after the HOLC era and the demographic, economic, and residential changes affecting U.S. cities.     

Gentrification in tourist cities: Evidence from New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina

Abstract

Tourism‐led redevelopment often provides city residents with increased opportunities for employment, leisure, and cultural enrichment, but it can also have dramatic and unpredictable effects on their lives. One of these effects involves the repercussions of redevelopment that transforms working‐class neighborhoods into middle‐ or upper‐class areas catering to tourists. We use the city of New Orleans as a case study to explore the connections between tourism and gentrification.

We first discuss the growth of tourism in New Orleans, paying particular attention to its geographic scope. We then consider the ways in which gentrification and tourism are connected in New Orleans and what their relationship adds to theories of tourism development and urban revitalization. The analysis concludes with an in‐depth look at one of the nation's oldest black neighborhoods, Tremé, where both tourism and the nonblack population have been increasing in recent years.