Concentrated Poverty 2 Flashcards
(30 cards)
What’s the standard definition of “concentrated poverty”?
A census tract where at least XX % (typically 20–40 %) of residents live below the official poverty line.
Why use census tracts to identify high-poverty neighborhoods?
They are small, relatively uniform units (~4,000 people) that approximate “neighborhoods” and allow consistent geographic comparisons.
What conceptual phenomenon does a tract with ≥ XX % poor capture?
Neighborhoods with very high shares of low-income residents—where disadvantages cluster and reinforce each other.
Why do poverty-rate thresholds undercount concentrated poverty in high-cost areas?
The federal poverty line does not adjust for local cost of living, so expensive metros appear to have fewer high-poverty tracts.
How do tract definitions bias against rural/low-density regions?
In sparse areas tracts cover bigger territories, diluting extreme poverty pockets and classifying fewer areas as “high-poverty.”
How did the overall share of people in high-poverty tracts change between 2005–09 and 2010–14?
It rose from 10.5 % to 13.5 % of the population.
How did White, Black, and Hispanic concentrated-poverty rates shift (2005–09 → 2010–14)?
White: 4.1 % → 5.5 %
Black: 21.2 % → 25.1 %
Hispanic: 12.9 % → 17.6 %
What do age-by-race data show about poor children’s exposure?
Poor Black kids (0–17): ~25 % live in high-poverty tracts
Poor Hispanic kids: ~18 %
Poor White kids: ~6–8 %
Gaps are largest among youngest children.
Which geography saw the largest increase in the share of poor residents in high-poverty tracts (2005–09 to 2010–14)?
Suburbs (+10.2 ppt), rising from 31.0 % to 41.2 %.
List five place-level factors that predict higher concentrated poverty.
Higher overall poverty rate
Greater population density
Higher fraction of Black households
Larger share of households with young children
(Implied) Under-resourced public services
Why does density correlate with concentrated poverty?
Denser areas can pack more poor households into small tracts, intensifying spatial clustering of disadvantage.
How does a high share of young children relate to concentrated poverty?
Neighborhoods with many young-family households often lack resources and have higher poverty rates.
Why are tracts with a higher Black share more likely to be high-poverty?
Historical and structural segregation has confined many Black families to under-resourced, high-poverty areas.
What measurement challenges arise when using tract poverty rates?
No cost-of-living adjustment
Large tracts in rural areas dilute pockets of poverty
Choice of threshold (XX %) affects sensitivity
Name six drivers of concentrated poverty (many borrow from racial-segregation literature).
Mortgage-lending discrimination (Dymski, 2006)
Housing-search discrimination (Christensen & Timmins, 2018)
Information gaps (Bergman et al., 2019)
Restrictive zoning (Schill & Wachter, 1995)
Self-segregation (Becker & Murphy, 2000)
Public-housing policies (De Souza Briggs, 2005)
How does mortgage-lending discrimination concentrate poverty?
By denying or restricting credit to borrowers of certain races or neighborhoods, limiting their ability to buy in non-poor areas.
What role does restrictive zoning play?
Zoning that bars multi-unit or affordable housing drives low-income households into a shrinking supply of high-poverty tracts.
Why is self-segregation a factor?
Households may choose to live among similar peers (cultural or social preferences), reinforcing high-poverty clusters even absent overt barriers.
What’s the economic justification for government intervention against concentrated poverty?
The existence of negative externalities—social costs (crime, poor health, low human capital) that spill over to non-poor residents.
Define neighborhood effects in the context of concentrated poverty.
The idea that the neighborhood one lives (or grows up) in causally impacts life outcomes—health, education, earnings, crime involvement, etc.
What’s the key empirical challenge in studying neighborhood effects?
Sorting vs. causal effect—distinguishing whether poor outcomes stem from the neighborhood itself or from the characteristics that led families to that neighborhood.
Why can’t we simply randomly assign people to good vs. bad neighborhoods?
It would be ethically problematic to force families into potentially harmful environments without their consent.
What study attempted a quasi-random move out of high-poverty areas?
The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment—randomizing housing vouchers to relocate public-housing tenants.
What was the goal of the MTO experiment?
To test whether relocating families from concentrated-poverty public housing to lower-poverty neighborhoods would causally improve outcomes for adults and children.
