Concentrated Poverty Is the New Urban Panic

By Susan Greenbaum, Al Jazeera America

21 September 15

 

There is far more social capital in high-poverty neighborhoods than some public policy analysts suggest

esidential clustering of very poor families, especially of ethnic minorities, is increasing. Widely reported analyses by Paul Jargowsky, a fellow at the Century Foundation and professor of public policy at Rutgers University, show a growing number of neighborhoods in which poor households exceed 40 percent — the threshold measure of a demographic condition called “concentration.” He associates concentrated poverty with riotous protest and police violence, along with high rates of school dropouts, teen pregnancy and incarceration. Concentrated poverty apparently brews a toxic mix of lawlessness and despair that is contagious, lethal and growing. 

Jargowsky’s thesis, embraced by many other urban analysts, is that large numbers of poor people living together in distressed surroundings will generate a local culture that lacks social capital and adequate “role models” and reinforces negative behavior. Inappropriate lessons learned on the streets of poor, segregated neighborhoods are viewed as a major cause of individual failure.  

Such arguments fail to consider that the only neighborhoods poor people can afford overwhelmingly have underfunded schools, overly aggressive police, substandard housing, inadequate health care, exploitative businesses, paternalistic or corrupt services, few legal job possibilities and too much crime. Correlation is not causation. Distressed conditions in these neighborhoods were not caused by an absence of “role models” or inadequate social capital. In fact, there is far more social capital in high poverty neighborhoods than Jargowsky and others have assessed. But that reality is ignored in this latest round of warnings about the growing dangers of concentrated poverty. 

Jargowsky issued a much cheerier report (PDF) on the same subject in 2003, based on observed changes through the 1990s, when the number of high-poverty tracts actually declined slightly instead of increasing. Since then, however, we appear to have headed in the other direction. Much of this has been driven by the national economy, which tanked in 2008. Poverty rates spiked and have stayed high. Growing concentrations of poverty are consistent with rising rents and widespread refusal of landlords to accept housing vouchers.

Data from concentrated neighborhoods do reflect worries for youth growing up there. Correlations between high poverty rates and adverse medical, domestic, educational, employment and criminal justice outcomes seemingly confirm that these places are toxic. Jargowsky and other analysts imply that these problems are greatly aggravated by residents’ collectively inappropriate values, behavior and choices.

If concentration is the problem, then the solution should lie in de-concentration: Just move people into more wholesome environments and let them thrive. Actually, we already tried that. For nearly two decades, from 1992 until 2010, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) demolished hundreds of public housing complexes under the HOPE VI program, allegedly to rescue residents from the effects of concentration. Most families were relocated into private housing using vouchers. During that same period (1994-98), a HUD experiment called Moving to Opportunity (MTO) was launched in five U.S. cities, and randomly selected public-housing families were deliberately relocated into census tracts in which poverty-level households constituted less than 10 percent.

To gauge whether moving out of concentrated poverty improved lives, relocated families from HOPE VI and MTO were studied over the years. In Tampa, I led an independent research project on the effects of HOPE VI from 2000-09. We interviewed relocated households and homeowners in two receiving neighborhoods, and tracked socioeconomic conditions in all relocation sites in the county.

Nationally, formal evaluations of both HOPE VI and MTO showed no measurable improvements in the economic wellbeing of relocated adults or educational success of children. Few benefits were found for either program, and there were several negative outcomes. Boys faced particular problems in new neighborhoods. Recent research (PDF) with young male adults who grew up in MTO low-poverty neighborhoods revealed significantly higher levels of conduct disorder and PTSD than counterparts who stayed behind in public housing. Another, more positive study of the MTO data suggests that children in families who moved to low-poverty neighborhoods before age 13 now earn more on average as adults, and are more likely to be married. However, those who moved when they were older have fared worse than those who grew up in public housing. Although results are mixed, the most that can be said is that relocating families with young children, preferably only girls, might yield benefits in the next generation.

Many relocated families have returned to old neighborhoods, to reconnect with kin and friends, regain access to transit, and/or escape unpleasant conditions. Relations with new neighbors had been one source of unpleasantness. Relocated families we interviewed in a low-poverty Tampa neighborhood reported both social and physical isolation, as well as overt hostility from their new neighbors. Housing was better, but transit and other services were worse. Many of their old ties were severed, and new social connections intended to open opportunities and mentor youth weren't forming. Interviews with a large sample of surrounding homeowners confirmed the reported hostility: They worried about property values and safety, and were angry at the government for endangering them with “these families.”

That fearful hostility, infected with racism and fed by real economic concerns, reflects the ugly history of racially concentrated poverty and resistance to desegregation. Well into the second half of the 20th century technocrats confidently advised builders, bankers and public officials to avoid residential mixing of races. The templates of cities, suburbs and transit followed that rule, as did realtors, insurers and lenders. Too many still quietly accept it. Jargowsky concedes all this, but he leaves unquestioned the ongoing folklore about cultures of poverty and the dangerousness of poor people of color. 

The same scurrilous racial stereotypes that originally justified segregation (i.e, “concentration”) were invoked as reason to remove people from places where they may have wanted to stay and scatter them into other neighborhoods where it was believed they could learn better ways to live.

Under the HOPE VI plan, containment changed to coerced dispersal. The logic had not changed — just the tactic. Relocation was justified by claims that public housing fostered a pathological social environment, an argument that validated negative images of public-housing tenants and fueled hostile reactions in receiving neighborhoods. MTO was nearly shut down in Baltimore due to resistance in white neighborhoods. These deeply rooted beliefs are the real problem — and policies that are effectively based on them are both wrong and counter-productive.

Relocation is not the answer to poverty or its concentration. We cannot abandon or demolish whole neighborhoods because too many poor people live there. We need to fix distressed neighborhoods and enforce fair housing laws. In reality the vast majority of people who live in these stigmatized areas have middle-class aspirations and are doing their best to give their kids a chance.

Not well known to those who live in other neighborhoods are the many residents who devote their time to helping neighbors and working for change. Our policies need to support and reward that work. We must invest in decent schools and services, demand more respectful and effective policing and through media coverage, educational materials and public meetings actively challenge racist stereotypes that have caused generations of damage to our people and our cities.

Why It Could Be President Bush and VP Kasich

By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News

21 September 15

 

et ready: the Republicans may not know it, but they’ve all but certified their ticket for 2016, and they will probably win.

The saturation bloviation that followed this week’s Republican presidential debates missed some monumental moments, including:

(1)There was one (and ONLY one) candidate on the stage that had anything meaningful to say. It was Rand Paul. What he said about war and marijuana were of serious significance.

(2)The GOP hard core on the stage and in the audience certified their obeisance to a free pass for the horrific presidency of George W. Bush, thereby opening the door for his brother, who can almost certainly win if he runs with the guy from Ohio.

Let’s deal first with Rand Paul. Like his father (and unlike virtually anyone else in the GOP) the Senator from Kentucky seems to have some actual principles. Both Pauls have been firmly committed to the legalization of marijuana for many years, and have not wavered.

When Rand (who’s a medical doctor) discussed pot in the debate, he couched it in terms of those who are struggling to get medical marijuana treatment for their children. Rather than slamming him, Jeb Bush then sheepishly admitted to having smoked it many years ago, puffing it up with the obligatory joke about his truly terrifying mother.

That’s old news. What’s new came from Chris Christie. The New Jersey governor has proudly proclaimed that as president he would send the drug gestapo even (or especially) into states where pot has been legalized to “enforce federal law.”

But when confronted with Sen. Paul’s lament on medical marijuana, Christie whimpered that NJ also has medical marijuana, and that he would not interfere with that.

It was utterly ridiculous. But it underscored how far pot has moved toward full legalization. These were the REPUBLICANS! Only Carly Fiorino jumped in with a lament over the death of her drug-addicted step-daughter, which somehow seemed to support her desire to jail all pot smokers.

Those of us in Ohio were then treated to a high-production-value commercial (it ran at least twice during the debate) featuring a Buckeye mother complaining that her daughter suffers from seizures, and that she and her husband have been forced to move to Colorado to get medical marijuana.

Bordering on the surreal for those of us living in the midwest, the ad was sponsored by a very well-funded group of corporatists who’ve put a legalization measure on the ballot here.

That initiative might fail. But Toledo has just voted to decriminalize and the floodgates feeding full legalization are clearly open. That the national Republicans (Fiorino and Christie aside) have finally stopped falling over themselves to slaughter anyone who even mentions legal pot is good news.

It should be further noted that when challenged, none of the other candidates joined Jeb in admitting that they inhaled. But here in Columbus we are surrounded by former college classmates of Governor Kasich who swear without reservation that he was (and may still be) a major pothead.

There are also those who claim he’s bisexual, but that’s another story. (We will be publishing CITIZEN KASICH, a study of the man who may be Vice President, in early 2016).

Rand Paul’s powerful denunciations of foreign intervention in general and the Iraq war in particular were also significant. His father Ron has delivered some uniquely cogent denunciations of our disaster in Vietnam.Rand has been equally clear about the on-going imperial fiasco in the Middle East.

Here again we saw a mixed bag on stage. There was serious hemming and hawing about how bad George W. Bush’s plunge into the quicksand really was.

But Jeb was ready. “He kept us safe,” he said of his older brother.

It was an astonishing lie. It was W running the country when 9/11 happened. New York and then the nation were permeated with toxic dust that poisoned our persona and gutted our civil liberties.

Bush2 then presided over one of the nation’s most grotesque military failures, followed by an utter dereliction of duty during Hurricane Katrina, leading to the destruction of an entire great city and many unnecessary deaths. And that’s just for starters.

It is safe to say our nation will never recover from W’s eight years of unelected misadventures.

But the GOP faithful did not groan and puke over Bush3’s defense of his brother. They applauded! Wildly!!

This, of course, in the lair of the Grand Illusionist, the Ronald Reagan who covered his own catastrophic regime with the B-movie madness of endless upbeat enthusiasm, even while delivering a saturation disaster.

Suddenly all the common wisdom that the GOP would not go for Bush3 evaporated. Here was the brother and son of previous Republican presidents, standing tall on a stage filled with utterly boring haters, hacks and one very rich performance artist. The Bush pall suddenly turned to sheen, at least in GOP eyes. Don’t “misunderestimate” that moment, as Bush2 might say.

The poll numbers still seem to favor Trump. But he is too much of a wild card for America’s oligarchs. On three key issues he actually veers left. He supports a single-payer health care system; he says he wants the tax loophole closed for hedge fund financiers; and he clearly believes that children’s vaccines can cause autism.Sooner or later, the corporate/media hammer will come down on Trump, and he’ll have to decide whether to run third party.If he does, the GOP (which learned a major lesson with Ross Perot in 1992) will have to decide whether they’ll let him live.THAT will be the real moment of truth in 2016.

Only Kasich said anything else of significance. Briefly but not too subtly, he commented essentially that he has a lock on Ohio. It was an apparent throw-away comment early in the game, missed by most.

Kasich’s latest insult to Hispanic voters is emblematic of his tone-deaf nature. Within the party, it will pass.

But come next fall, one need only do the quick math: Bush carries Florida, Kasich counts Ohio, game over.

Do not “misunderestimate” the fact that 80% of the votes in 2016 will be cast on electronic machines, with access controlled on electronic registration rolls. With this comes a network of private, partisan, for-profit companies that favor the Bushes.

The GOP has both governors and secretaries of state in Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Arizona. There are many others, but those five swing states could be more than enough.

(We’ll deal with this in THE SIXTH JIM CROW: ELECTRONIC ELECTION THEFT & THE STRIP/FLIP OF 2016, also to be published early next year).

Unless something is done about it between now and November 2016, there is no public recourse on any of the machines on which this election will be conducted. They are privately owned. The source code is proprietary. The boards of election have no access. There will be no meaningful recounts.

No matter how the public votes, wherever the governor and secretary of state are of the same party, the outcome can be altered with a few keystrokes in a few seconds. And unless things change, there will nothing to be done about it, especially in light of the billions the Koch Brothers and other GOP stalwarts are spending to buy the White House.

The voter rolls can be stripped and the vote count flipped with Republican spare change.

Yes, this is conspiracy theory. But anyone who doubts the conspiracy has not closely looked at the selections of 2000 and 2004.

The ones that brought us George W. Bush, who “kept us safe.”

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Columbus Free Press is the Publication of Origin for this work.