Pearson, Social Science Research Council Lee Rainwater, Harvard University: Erol Ricketts, Rockefeller Foundation Edward Seidman, New York University Maris Vinovskis, University of Michigan Loic Wacquant, University of Chicago Melvin Wilson, University of Virginia and Patricia Zavella, University of California, Santa Cruz. Gephart, Social Science Research Council: Cheryl Hayes, National Academy of Sciences Christopher Jencks, Northwestern University Richard Jessor, University of Colorado Michael Katz, University of Pennsylvania: Robert Michael, National Opinion Research Center John Modell, Carnegie Mellon University Raquel Ovryn Rivera, Social Science Research Council Robert W. Furstenberg, Jr., University of Pennsylvania Martha A. Cook, Northwestern University Felton Earl, Harvard University Frank F. Lawrence Aber, Barnard College and Columbia University Geraldine Brookins, Jackson State University Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Educational Testing Service James Connell, University of Rochester Thomas D. On October 19–21, 1988, a group met to consider research on the relationship between acutely impoverished urban communities and neighborhoods, family systems, and individual development. The committee began its consideration of the role of communities and neighborhoods by convening two planning meetings. It is at this level that research can analyze the effects of changing labor markets, the roles of other institutions in constructing the social reality that people experience, and the impact of public policy and private philanthropy in creating resources and supporting institutions. As such, communities and neighborhoods provide an intellectual and strategic fulcrum for the multilevel analysis which the program seeks to facilitate (Gephart and Pearson 1988). Communities and neighborhoods have been conceptualized initially as an intermediate level of analysis between the macro level of cities, states, regions, and nations and the micro level of families and individuals. Since the Council’s Committee for Research on the Urban Underclass was first appointed in June of 1988, it has given considerable attention to the role of neighborhoods and communities in the processes that help create, maintain, or ameliorate the condition of an urban underclass. Current interest in the importance of neighborhoods builds upon older traditions of scholarship, including work of the Chicago school in the 1920s and 1930s and ethnographies of inner-city neighborhoods in the 1950s and 1960s. Research on poverty focused on income, and policy focused on bringing cash and in-kind benefits to individuals and families. “During the past two decades, scholars largely ignored the role of neighborhoods and communities in shaping the lives of the poor.”ĭuring the past two decades, scholars largely ignored the role of neighborhoods and communities in shaping the lives of the poor. The conjunction of Wilson’s argument and evidence for the growth and concentration of an urban underclass has led to renewed interest in the role of neighborhoods and communities in the processes that create, maintain, or help to ameliorate the conditions that are typically subsumed under the urban underclass concept. 1 Many current conceptualizations of the urban underclass center around the conjunction of three factors: (1) the spatial concentration of disadvantage (e.g., income poverty, low labor-force participation rates) (2) persistent poverty-often associated with extended welfare dependency and the intergenerational transmission of poverty and/or (3) non-normative behaviors (e.g., crime, drug abuse, out-of-wedlock birth, participation in an “unrecorded” or “illicit economy”). Regardless of the particular definition of the underclass that one accepts, there is evidence that the size of the urban underclass grew substantially after 1970, that it became more spatially concentrated, and that the population is predominately black and Hispanic (Bane and Jargowsky 1988 Mincy 1988 Ricketts and Sawhill 1988 Hughes 1988). He argues that the decline of central-city manufacturing, the suburbanization of employment, and the out-migration of middle-class black families from ghetto areas have left behind destitute communities lacking the institutions, resources, and role models necessary for success in post-industrial society. Some have argued that the increasing concentration of minority poor in urban areas may relegate the residents to persistent poverty and “social pathologies.” In his 1987 book, The Truly Disadvantaged, William Julius Wilson emphasizes the role of neighborhoods in shaping the lives of the poor. Recent discussions of the urban underclass have begun to focus attention on the consequences that living in particular neighborhoods may have for their residents.
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