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Little is known about the neighborhood context of offending for Asian American youth. The current study differentiates between coethnic neighborhood types and considers if residence in ethnoburbs–a...

Studies have begun to recognize the multilevel and complex nature of intimate partner violence. Yet, only a small number of studies have looked at the interactive relationship between proximal and ...

In this study, we examine the association between neighborhood socioeconomic ascent from 1990 to 2010 and charter school openings from 2010 to 2016 using a national sample of school attendance boun...

We examined both main effects and cross-level effects of prior criminal justice contact on delinquency and violence. Using multilevel longitudinal data from the Project on Human Development on Chic...

Recently, interest has piqued on the effects of neighborhood context on parolee recidivism; however, examinations often neglect to model neighborhood institutions. One type of institution that may ...

Although the overall trend in nursing home use has declined, this has not been the case for racial and ethnic minorities. This article elucidates the role of stressors and neighborhood context in n...

This study investigates interpersonal communication ties and a neighborhood context as moderators of the influences of local crime news on fear of crime and mistrust. Data from a web survey of resi...

BACKGROUND: Gang membership is a significant contributor to delinquency and violent victimization among adolescents. Yet, there is considerable variability in the extent to which gang members engage in delinquency and substance use, and previous research suggests factors beyond the individual level are important to consider. OBJECTIVES: Using the multiple marginality framework, this study examines the factors related to the family, school, and neighborhood contexts that may contribute to delinquency and substance use among current gang members. METHODS: Between 2013 and 2015, we conducted quantitative surveys with 449 self-identified gang members between the ages of 14 and 19 years old in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Surveys included measures to assess delinquency, substance use, parental involvement, educational attainment, drug distribution, and police involvement. We ran simple and multiple regressions to assess the relationship between family, school, and neighborhood factors and delinquency and substance use. RESULTS: Regression analyses revealed several significant predictors of delinquency and substance use among adolescent gang members including parental substance use and incarceration, school safety, police contact, and neighborhood disorder. CONCLUSIONS: Family and school factors are likely important protective factors against delinquency and substance use among gang members. Interventions at the family and community level may be particularly important in reducing poor health and social outcomes for adolescent gang members.

Food insecurity and housing instability are pervasive issues in the United States and disproportionally affect immigrants and have many negative consequences for low-income families. Although evidence shows that food insecurity contributes to housing instability, how it affects immigrants, the duration of food insecurity, and the role of the neighborhood context in this relationship remain largely unknown. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we find that the negative association of food insecurity is 3 times larger for immigrants than for nonimmigrants. In addition, persistently food insecure families have the highest risk of experiencing housing instability compared to families experiencing short-term food insecurity. The findings point to potential positive externality effects of anti-hunger and food assistance programs on reducing material hardships beyond food insecurity and the particular policy implications for immigrants.

Ever-scarce affordable housing production resources, in addition to their primary function of providing housing for those in need, are increasingly enlisted for the dual goals of strengthening distressed communities and increasing access to higher opportunity neighborhoods. Information on spillovers can inform investment decisions over time and across communities. We leverage recent, high-quality research on neighborhood effects of Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) production, synthesizing evidence according to neighborhood context. We also summarize the evidence on project features moderating impacts of publicly subsidized, place-based rental housing, in general. We conclude that context matters. Producing LIHTC housing in distressed neighborhoods positively impacts the surrounding neighborhood—in terms of modest property value gains and increased safety. By contrast, higher opportunity neighborhoods experience small property value reductions, and no impacts on crime. Big questions remain, ho...

Most research on urban food deserts has employed spatial measures of accessibility, recording distances to various food stores from place of residence. Despite the popularity of this approach, empirical support for its prediction of dietary and health outcomes has been inconsistent. One reason might be the ways in which food deserts frame food access as fundamentally an issue of food supply. This article suggests a complementary approach that examines how store characteristics, neighborhood context, and individual mobility interact to shape food provisioning practices. I recruited thirty-eight participants living in two low-income neighborhoods of Minneapolis, Minnesota, tracking their daily mobility and the food sources they used over a five-day study period. Follow-up interviews gathered more information on the food stores used by participants. Project results show that participants were highly mobile in their food shopping, visiting 153 different locations on 217 different shopping trips at an average ...

Recent scholarship focuses on the role neighborhood context plays in reoffending. These studies lack an examination of how the size of the parolee population at the neighborhood-level impacts individual recidivism. We examine how the size and clustering of parolee populations within and across neighborhoods impacts individual-level recidivism. Using data from parolees returning to three Ohio cities from 2000 to 2009, we examine how concentrations of parolees in neighborhoods and in the surrounding neighborhoods impact the likelihood of reoffending. We also examine whether parolee clustering conditions the relationship between neighborhood-level characteristics and recidivism. Results show concentrated reentry increases recidivism, while parolees in stable neighborhoods are less likely to recidivate. Also, the positive effect of parolee concentration is tempered when parolees return to stable neighborhoods. These findings suggest that augmenting resources available in neighborhoods saturated by parolees, a...

The epidemic of foreclosures across the United States in the mid-2000 decade offers a unique opportunity to examine neighborhood changes that result over extended periods of time. In this analysis,...

Many studies have focused on new media's role in connecting interest-based communities across vast geographic distances; fewer studies have examined how viable social media is as a communication tool within the neighborhood context. This study investigates the ways in which established modes of place-based neighborhood association, connection, and communication coincide or conflict with the perceived affordances of connection and association available in social networking sites. As a case study, we identified a neighborhood association that had seen its participation rates dwindle. The association's steering committee decided to turn to popular social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter) to revitalize. After the initial launch, they garnered only five “likes,” three Twitter followers, and two members for the e-mail listserv out of a possible 550 households. A survey of neighborhood residents showed some potential for social media use but also significant mismatches between the perceived affordan...

Neighborhood-focused activism is one way residents enact their vision for their community. This study examines the neighborhood socioeconomic antecedents of participation in neighborhood-focused activism in a diverse sample of residents of Chicago neighborhoods to test three theories of neighborhood socioeconomic context and participation: 1) affluence affords participation, 2) activism addresses neighborhood needs associated with disadvantage, and 3) socioeconomic inequality creates contention that necessitates participation. Measuring neighborhood socioeconomic status as two unique dimensions, neighborhood affluence and neighborhood disadvantage, and accounting for both individual and neighborhood characteristics, I find support for each theory. Neighborhood socioeconomic context matters for participation, regardless of individual socioeconomic characteristics. Only when these three perspectives are considered jointly can they fully capture the socioeconomic context of participation in neighborhood-focused activism.

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Housing policy in the United States has struggled for decades to assess the relative importance of neighborhood context in the provision of subsidized housing. In this study, we enter the debate over the value and limitations of neighborhood settings and the “dispersal-versus-development” approach by looking at the issue from an alternative perspective: neighborhood access. We provide a large-scale, quantified assessment of the neighborhood context of subsidized housing, with specific attention to six metropolitan areas in the United States. Using data on neighborhood access (measured by a walkability index) and locations of federally subsidized housing, we investigate three primary areas of research: an analysis of the level of access for subsidized housing, the question of whether low-poverty neighborhoods translates to low access, and the degree to which neighborhood access is compromised by an increase in negative factors like crime, poverty, or segregation. W...

Race is often linked with crime. Research, regardless of method, finds that crime appears to be disproportionately committed by racial and ethnic minorities, especially blacks. And, this disproportionality is greater for violent crimes such as robbery and homicide than it is for non-violent crimes. While some studies identify the importance of neighborhood context, others discuss the importance of a youth's peer group in accounting for the relationship between race and violent offending, particularly the racial heterogeneity of the peer group. Drawing on the work of organizational literature as well as the subculture of violence thesis, the current study explores the race-violence relationship by examining three additional mediators: the formation of delinquent attitudes, adherence to a street code, and susceptibility to peer influence. Furthermore, utilizing a sample of white, black, and Hispanic youth, this study examines the extent to which these variables mediate the relationship between racial hetero...

Prior research with older urban children indicates that disadvantaged neighborhood context is associated with poorer early development, including poorer verbal ability, reading recognition, and achievement scores among children. Neighborhood disadvantage in rural communities and at younger age levels may also be related to development; however this relationship has received little examination. In this study we utilize data from the Family Life Project, a representative sample of babies born to mothers in poor rural counties in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, to address questions related to the relationship between neighborhood context (disadvantage and safety) and children's early language development. We examine mediation of this relationship by child care quality. We also examine geographic isolation and collective socialization as moderators of the relationship between neighborhood context and child care quality. Results indicated that while neighborhood disadvantage did not predict children's development or child care quality, neighborhood safety predicted children's receptive language, with child care quality a partial mediator of this relationship. Collective socialization but not geographic isolation moderated the relationship between neighborhood safety and child care quality.Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed, including improving community safety through community policing, neighborhood watch, and social networks and increasing access to quality child care.

Many studies have documented an increasing prevalence of secondary exposure to community violence from childhood through young adulthood. Yet inconsistencies exist in the findings, with some studies reporting a weak association, or no association, between age and exposure to community violence. This study investigates whether the disparate study findings reflect unmeasured but consequential neighborhood dynamics for the relationship between age and exposure to violence. Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, this study contributes to the literature by examining variability in the relationship between age and exposure to community violence across neighborhood context. The results of hierarchical Poisson models support the hypothesis that age disparities in exposure to violence are attenuated in more disadvantaged neighborhoods. Results further indicate that high levels of community violence are responsible for the suppression of individual variation in age in extremely d...

The bulk of “neighborhood effects” research examines the impact of neighborhood conditions cross-sectionally. However, it is critical to understand whether the effects of neighborhood context are situational and whether they endure over time. In this study, we take seriously the notion that there are enduring consequences of exposure to deleterious neighborhood conditions. Using a rich set of longitudinal data on adolescents from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, we estimate the effect of exposure to violence on both internalizing (depression and anxiety) and externalizing problems (aggression). We find that exposure to violence has both an acute and enduring effect on aggression, yet no effect on anxiety-depression, net of individual, family, peer, and neighborhood influences. Part of the enduring effect of violence exposure is explained by changes in social cognitions brought on by the exposure, yet much of the relationship remains to be explained by other causal mechanisms.

Research on citizens’ perceptions of the police has previously found that citizen demographics, contact with police, and neighborhood context influence perceptions. The current study includes all three of these categories of variables, but also introduces a new variable: citizens’ perception of contact between the police and other citizens in their neighborhood. Survey responses were collected from 426 citizens in a Midwestern city. The analysis indicates that citizens’ perception of police–citizen contact is the strongest factor influencing citizen's perceptions of the police.

This study examines the changes in neighborhoods hosting the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) projects in Miami-Dade County between the 1990 and 2000 censuses. The study applies a cluster analysis to identify neighborhoods that are similar to LIHTC neighborhoods. It then compares changes in LIHTC neighborhoods with the median changes experienced by similar neighborhoods without the LIHTC in eight selected indicators. The study finds that over half of the LIHTC neighborhoods have experienced more positive changes than their control groups; however, the effects vary by neighborhood context. Black high-poverty neighborhoods receiving the LIHTC investment have experienced the most positive changes, while changes in middle-class neighborhoods have been the most negative. Further case studies show that LIHTC is successful at promoting neighborhood revitalization when it is strategically concentrated and part of cumulative efforts. These case studies, however, also raise concerns about the over-concentratio...

The primary purpose of this study is to assess the relative effects of race and class, at both individual and neighborhood levels, on public satisfaction with police. Using hierarchical linear modeling on 1,963 individuals nested within 66 neighborhoods, this study analyzes how individual‐level variables, including race, class, age, gender, victimization and contact with police, and neighborhood‐level factors, including racial composition, concentrated disadvantage, residential mobility and violent crime rate, influence residents' satisfaction with police. The results from the individual‐level analysis indicate that both race and class are equally important predictors. African Americans and lower‐class people tend to be less satisfied with police. The significant effects of race and class, however, disappear when neighborhood‐level characteristics are considered simultaneously. Neighborhood racial composition affects satisfaction with police, with residents in predominately White and racially mixed neighb...

Researchers studying the race–violence relationship have tended to focus on either structural or cultural explanations. Although both explanations are important, they tend to be incomplete. We draw on Anderson’s “code of the street” thesis, which combines structural and cultural explanations to explain the high rates of violence among African American adolescents. Anderson argues that the street code, which supports the use of violence, is a cultural adaptation to negative neighborhood structural conditions, as well as family characteristics and racial discrimination. Using two waves of data from 720 African American adolescents from 259 neighborhoods, we investigated whether neighborhood context, family type, and discrimination influenced adoption of the street code. We also assessed whether the street code mediated the effects of neighborhood context, family characteristics, and racial discrimination on violent delinquency. Consistent with Anderson’s hypotheses, neighborhood structural characteristics, ...

Blacks and Latinos have higher levels of offending than Whites for violent crimes. Researchers have examined a range of explanations that primarily focus on race and have only begun to consider how macro contexts influence individual levels of violence. This study contributes to this literature by including both race and ethnicity, and by examining the role of social psychological processes in mediating the impact of neighborhood contexts on violence. Using the Add Health data, I demonstrate the importance of the neighborhood context, socioeconomic status, and social psychological processes in explaining the relationship between race, ethnicity and violence. Having witnessed and been victimized by violence is by far the most important social psychological process in explaining this relationship.

SUMMARY This study explored the range of parenting goals and strategies in a sample of resilient, urban, poor, African American, single mothers. Transcripts of semi-structured interviews with 10 mothers were analyzed using a standard qualitative data analysis technique. Contrary to the negative stereotypes held about the parenting skills of poor, single mothers, these resilient mothers described a range of plan-fully implemented parenting strategies designed to respond to a variety of parenting goals, including protecting their children, instilling values, and disciplining misbehavior. Mothers used parenting strategies that were congruent with their goals, the neighborhood context, and particular child behaviors. Mothers primarily used verbal instruction to instill values, but utilized a wider range of strategies, including instruction, loss of privileges, and physical punishment to correct misbehavior and protect their children.

We test three different conceptual models—“experience with police,” “quality of life,” and “neighborhood context”—for directional accuracy and ability to explain satisfaction with the police. We also investigate whether these models help to explain the common finding that African-Americans are more dissatisfied with the police than are Caucasians. To do so, we use hierarchical linear modeling to simultaneously regress our outcome measure on clusters of citizen- and neighborhood-level variables. The analysis was conducted using recently collected information from the Project on Policing Neighborhoods (POPN). The data file consisted of survey responses from 5,361 citizens residing in 58 neighborhoods located in Indianapolis, Indiana and St. Petersburg, Florida. At the citizen level, the psychologically based “quality of life” model accounts for the greatest proportion of explained variance and provides the greatest directional accuracy. Also, residents of neighborhoods characterized by concentrated disadvan...

Poverty among inner-city residents is associated with their marginal status in the labor market. Marginalization in the labor market begins during youth when important educational and employment decisions are made. Analysis of 1990 U.S. Census tract data for San Antonio, Texas identifies the lack of a high school diploma, poverty, non-employment, and non-enrollment in school as conditions of marginality for youth. Spatial patterns of youth labor market marginalization show concentrations in the inner city and in sectors on the West, South, and Eastside. Regression analysis reveals that levels of youth marginalization are associated with neighborhood context represented by the employment, behavioral, and ethnic characteristics of the overall residential population of a census tract.

One of the most controversial issues in policing concerns allegations of police abuse of members of minority groups. This article examines African Americans' and whites' perceptions and experiences of three types of police misconduct: unjustified street stops of citizens, verbal abuse, and use of excessive force. The study is based on in-depth interviews with residents of three neighborhoods in Washington, DC, which vary in racial and class profile. Findings support the thesis that neighborhood context conditions residents' attitudes and reported experiences with the police. Residents of both the white and the black middle-class neighborhoods were less likely to perceive or experience police abuse in their neighborhoods than were residents of the black lower-class neighborhood. Neighborhood class position thus may be an important, but often overlooked, factor shaping citizens' attitudes and experiences. In encounters with the police outside the neighborhood, however, individuals' race becomes salient. Imp...

The importance of neighborhood context has long been acknowledged in vulnerable populations, such as the homeless, and other groups at risk for addictions (1). The ability to conceptualize and meas...

Pilar Horner1, Andy Grogan-Kaylor2, Jorge Delva2, Cristina B Bares3, Fernando Andrade4, Marcela Castillo51School of Social Work, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA; 2School of Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA; 3School of Social Work, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA; 4School of Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA; 5Instituto de Nutrición y Tecnología de los Alimentos (INTA), Universidad de Chile, Santiago, ChileAbstract: Research on adolescent use of substances has long sought to understand the family factors that may be associated with use of different substances such as alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. However, scant attention has been focused on these questions in Latin American contexts, despite growing concerns about substance use among Latin American youth. Using data from a sample of 866 Chilean youth, we examined the relationship of family and neighborhood factors with youth substance abuse. We found that in a Latin American context, access to substances is an important predictor of use, but that neighborhood effects differ for marijuana use as opposed to cigarettes or alcohol. Age of youth, family and peer relationships, and gender all play significant roles in substance use. The study findings provide additional evidence that the use of substances is complex, whereby individual, family, and community influences must be considered jointly to prevent or reduce substance use among adolescents.Keywords: substance use, adolescence, international, peers

Relations between human beings and the physical environment have been the foci of research and speculation for at least two millennia. One such focus has dealt with the relationships between climate and crime. This paper develops four hypotheses concerning the interaction between violent behavior and the thermal environment. These hypotheses relate to the structural density of local areas, alcohol consumption across the city, calendar effects, and neighborhood context. We developed a taxonomy of high-, medium-, and low-status residential areas (“neighborhoods”) in Dallas, Texas. These groupings formed the basis of several crosstabulations in which the relative frequency of aggravated assaults was the dependent variable. Neighborhood types differed markedly in the amplitude of their summer peaking of assaults, low-status neighborhoods having a peak not amenable to explanation entirely on the basis of month length or number of weekend days in the months. Assaults directly linked to alcohol sales es...

This paper examines the neighborhood context and the relationship between four types of social participation and the sense of powerlessness variant of alienation. Findings suggest a refinement and reanalysis of the relationship implied by much of the literature. The strong inverse correlations between participation and alienation found among white populations are not obtained for this population of blacks. Given relative neighborhood stability, some evidence indicates that the expected association may emerge among blacks, depending on individual status characteristics such as income and residency tenure. In retrospect, the study identifies three considerations which might shape future research on the topic.

An attempt is made to evaluate urban homesteading in a holistic, neighborhood context, one incorporating multiple perspectives of groups associated with it. Most prior analyses of urban homesteading tend to consider only public sector program intentions and attitudes. By integrating into an evaluation the aims and commitments of the private and “popular” sectors, a more thorough and hopefully accurate picture of a program’s scope, impact and consequences (unanticipated as well as those which were planned) can be painted. Using the Minneapolis homestead program as a case study, it was found that some intended socio-economic consequences which homesteading provided, such as increased tax revenues and stimulating ge gentrification, proved beneficial for the city government but were less than desirable for many residents in homestead neighborhoods. Other economic, social and psychological dimensions are also considered from perspectives of groups involved. The suggestion is made that urban homesteading, as we...

This report examines relations between territorial cognitions and social climate in urban neighborhoods of varying composition. Three broad dimensions of cognitions including problems related to a lack of control, insider/stranger distinctions, and responsibility were investigated. We hypothesized that perceived consonance of social climate 'would be associated with less problems, easier insider/stranger distinctions, and increased responsibility. We also anticipated that a stable neighborhood context would be associated in the same fashion, with these three dimensions of cognitions. Results from a survey of respondents living in 12 different neighborhoods supported these hypotheses. Also, territorial cognitions were strongly associated with actual territorial marking behavior, underscoring the reliability of cognitions as indices of territorial functioning. Thus, territorial functioning is enhanced in the presence of a congenial social climate and a stable neighborhood. Future territorial research should...

In this paper, the effects of neighborhood racial composition and wealth are compared to the effects of police expenditures per capita and crime rate upon assessments of neighborhood police services in Boston. The results indicate that: (1) there is little correspondence between the level of police expenditures per capita and the level of citizen satisfaction; (2) higher neighborhood crime rates are associated with negative perceptions of neighborhood police performance; and (3) some aspects of neighborhood context even may be more important than crime rates in determining the level of citizen satisfaction with neighborhood police services.