More jobs are close at hand in cities. And on average the poor live closer to jobs than the non-poor. One of the most enduring explanations for urban poverty is the “spatial mismatch hypothesis” promulgated by John Kain in the 1960s. Briefly, the hypothesis holds that as jobs have increasingly suburbanized, job opportunities are moving […]
How important is proximity to jobs for the poor? Read More »
We recently featured a post regarding how venture capital is associated with economic mobility. We know that these are strongly correlated—and that, if we are concerned with the ability of children today to obtain ‘The American Dream,’ we should be concerned with how to increase economic mobility. To understand more about how cities can increase
How is economic mobility related to entrepreneurship? (Part 2: Small Business) Read More »
Our recent report, Lost in Place, closely tracks the growth of concentrated poverty in the nation’s cities; this is particularly important because of the widespread evidence of the permanent damage high-poverty neighborhoods do to children of poor families. Two new studies shed additional light on the importance of economic and racial integration to the life
New Findings on Economic Opportunity (that you should know) Read More »
We recently released our latest report, Lost in Place: Why the persistence and spread of concentrated poverty–not gentrification–is our biggest urban challenge. It speaks to a national trend that’s been largely ignored– that urban poor are being concentrated into poorer neighborhoods, and that those neighborhoods are increasing in number. We speak here about some of
Is your city or neighborhood poorer than 40 years ago? Read More »
In his book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam popularized the term “social capital.” Putnam also developed a clever series of statistics for measuring social capital. He looked at survey data about interpersonal trust (can most people be trusted?) as well as behavioral data (do people regularly visit neighbors, attend public meetings, belong to civic organizations?). Putnam’s
Anti-Social Capital? Read More »
Lost in Place: Why the persistence and spread of concentrated poverty–not gentrification–is our biggest urban challenge. A close look at population change in our poorest urban neighborhoods over the past four decades shows that the concentration of poverty is growing and that gentrification is rare. While media attention often focuses on those few places that
