Concentrated Poverty 3

Question 1

What prompted the Gautreaux case?

Answer 1

Chicago public-housing families sued the CHA and HUD, arguing that existing programs relegated Black households to segregated projects with substandard conditions.

Question 2

What did the court order in the Gautreaux lawsuit?

Answer 2

To issue housing vouchers enabling Black plaintiffs to move to ‘better’ (largely white, suburban) neighborhoods.

Question 3

How did researchers evaluate the Gautreaux program’s effects?

Answer 3

By comparing outcomes of families (especially children) who relocated to suburbs versus those who remained in Chicago.

Question 4

What were the key child outcomes for Gautreaux movers to suburbs?

Answer 4

5 % dropout rate (vs. 20 % in city)
27 % college attendance (vs. 4 %)
Among non‐college youth, 75 % employment (vs. 41 %)

Question 5

Why is the Gautreaux program historically significant?

Answer 5

It was the first large‐scale mobility intervention and directly inspired the federally funded Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment.

Question 6

What was the goal of the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment?

Answer 6

To test whether relocating low-income families from high-poverty public housing to lower-poverty neighborhoods causally improved adult and child outcomes.

Question 7

When and where did MTO launch?

Answer 7

1994, recruiting 4,600 families from distressed public housing in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.

Question 8

Who was eligible to sign up for MTO?

Answer 8

Voluntary participants: households in public or assisted housing living in census tracts with > 40 % of residents below poverty.

Question 9

How were MTO participants assigned?

Answer 9

Randomized into three groups:

Control (stay in public housing)
Unrestricted Voucher (voucher, no counseling)
Low-Poverty Voucher (voucher restricted to < 10 %-poverty tracts first year + mobility counseling)

Question 10

How many families were in each MTO group?

Answer 10

Control: 1,439 households
Unrestricted Voucher: 1,346
Low-Poverty Voucher: 1,819

Question 11

Why did MTO include an Unrestricted Voucher arm?

Answer 11

To distinguish effects of voucher use per se from effects of neighborhood poverty restrictions and counseling.

Question 12

What challenges arose with MTO’s design?

Answer 12

Only 47 % of the experimental group moved (63 % in Section 8 group)
Some treatment families later returned to higher-poverty areas
Control families sometimes left via HOPE VI demolitions

Question 13

What housing-market constraints limited voucher moves?

Answer 13

Scarcity of rental units
Landlord discrimination
Voucher payment standards sometimes too low

Question 14

How did MTO differ from Gautreaux in targeting?

Answer 14

MTO targeted concentrated poverty only (< 10 % poverty tracts), whereas Gautreaux also implicitly targeted racial integration (majority-white suburbs).

Question 15

What types of neighborhoods did MTO families originate from in Chicago?

Answer 15

Public-housing sites like Robert Taylor Homes, Ida B. Wells, and Stateway Gardens—all deep in high-poverty, high-segregation tracts.

Question 16

To which Chicago neighborhoods did MTO families relocate?

Answer 16

Lower-poverty but not highly integrated tracts like Calumet Heights and Riverdale.

Question 17

Did MTO move families to the tracts with the highest predicted earnings for their children?

Answer 17

No—the restricted criterion was poverty rate (< 10 %), not local opportunity index or predicted child earnings.

Question 18

What is the standard definition of concentrated poverty?

Answer 18

A census tract with at least XX % (usually 20–40 %) of residents below the poverty line.

Question 19

Why is the poverty-threshold definition of concentrated poverty imperfect?

Answer 19

Doesn’t adjust for cost of living
Under-counts rural/low-density areas (large tracts dilute poverty pockets)

Question 20

How did the national share of poor residents in high-poverty tracts change 2005–09 → 2010–14?

Answer 20

It rose from 47.4 % to 54.7 % of all poor residents.

Question 21

Which metro type saw the biggest rise in poor residents in high-poverty tracts?

Answer 21

Suburbs: +10.2 ppt (31.0 % → 41.2 %).

Question 22

How did concentrated-poverty rates vary by race 2005–09 vs. 2010–14?

Answer 22

White poor: 4.1 % → 5.5 %
Black poor: 21.2 % → 25.1 %
Hispanic poor: 12.9 % → 17.6 %

Question 23

Among poor children, which group faced the highest exposure to concentrated poverty?

Answer 23

Black children (≈ 25 % across ages 0–17), vs. Hispanic (~17 %) and White (~6–8 %).

Question 24

What place characteristics predict higher concentrated poverty?

Answer 24

Higher overall poverty, greater density, higher Black share, and more young-child households.

Question 25

List key drivers of concentrated poverty linked to segregation.

Answer 25

Mortgage-lending discrimination Housing-search discrimination Information gaps Restrictive zoning Self-segregation Public-housing policy design

Question 26

What are neighborhood effects?

Answer 26

The hypothesis that the neighborhood one lives or grows up in causally influences life outcomes (health, education, earnings, crime).

Question 27

What is the sorting hypothesis?

Answer 27

That observed neighborhood–outcome correlations reflect the characteristics of people who sort into certain neighborhoods, not causal neighborhood effects.

Question 28

Why can’t we easily conduct a pure RCT assigning families to good vs. bad neighborhoods?

Answer 28

Ethical issues around coercively placing families in potentially harmful environments.

Question 29

How did MTO ethically approximate an RCT?

Answer 29

By randomizing voluntary participants to different voucher treatments, not by forced relocation.

Question 30

Why is estimating the causal effect of concentrated poverty critical for policy?

Answer 30

Because it determines whether government interventions to de-concentrate poverty yield net social benefits by reducing negative externalities.