Our colleagues at the Penn Institute for Urban Research are hosting a panel discussion titled:

Place-Based Interventions: Exploring the Research and Evidence

on February 13 @ 5:30pm 

Please click here for the event flyer

Stefanie DeLuca, Ph.D.

Johns Hopkins University

“Why Poor People Move (and Where They Go): Residential Mobility, Selection, and Racial Segregation”

Thursday, January 24, 2013 – 12:20pm
Faculty Lounge, 3rd floor Armitage Hall

 

The reproduction of segregation and unequal neighborhood attainment has long been a social problem identified by scholars. Despite demonstrating high levels of residential mobility, low-income black families are less likely than any other group to escape disadvantaged neighborhoods.  These findings call for research to identify the mechanisms which work to channel families into unequal neighborhoods. Using in-depth interviews with 100 low-income African-American families residing in Mobile, AL and Baltimore, MD, we describe how the process of relocation works for the urban poor and how families engage in the process of neighborhood selection throughout their residential biographies.  In a striking departure from traditional research on mobility, we find that most families do not choose to move at all, with more than 70 percent of all most recent moves being catalyzed by forces which induce immediate, often involuntary relocation.  We show how this “reactive mobility” works to accelerate and hamper residential selection in ways that may reproduce neighborhood context. Where mobility happens voluntarily, we show how these choices are often made under circumstances which prohibit families from investigating their full range of residential options. We also show how parenting in the inner city and a lifetime of experience in violent communities sets expectations low for neighborhood quality, but high for housing unit characteristics.

The event was held at Harvard University on September 14, 2012.

For more information on the event: 

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/press-releases/truly-disadvantaged-conference-release

Peter O’Connor’s CURE/CE seminar talk last Friday, November 16th, 2012, had seminar attendees (mostly comprised of Rutgers students, faculty, and others interested in Peter’s legacy of fair housing law advocacy) hanging onto every word.  Peter gave a succinct recount of the regional inequality picture of the socio-economically unequal distribution of resources throughout Camden County and New Jersey in general.  He particularly stressed the relationship between racism, money, power, and political clout in the region and State and its relationship to regional, affordable housing opportunities for its low- to moderate-income residents.  For more information on Peter and his fair share housing organization, please visit fairsharehousing.org, Peter’s organization is located in Cherry Hill, NJ.