Pascale Joassart-Marcelli

The active city? Disparities in provision of urban public recreation resources

Recreation is critical to active living yet few studies have focused on disparities in the provision of recreational programs. We investigate the spatial distribution of public recreational programs in southern California. Findings indicate that more than half of all recreation programs take place away from a formal park site. Multivariate modeling results suggest that cities characterized by low household incomes, low fiscal capacity, minority populations, and multi-family housing are disadvantaged with respect to recreation provisions. Such disparities may increase health risks among populations in such communities. Urban planners and public health advocates should enhance recreation programs in lower-income non-white communities.

The Intrametropolitan Geography of Poverty and the Nonprofit Sector in Southern California

This article investigates the geographic distribution of nonprofit social service providers across southern California cities in an attempt to see whether they reach people in poverty. Using 1996 Internal Revenue Service data from the National Center on Charitable Statistics, combined with 1990 census data, the authors find that the number of antipoverty nonprofits and their level of expenditure are higher in poorer cities. Nevertheless, given poverty concentration patterns, these activities are insufficient to guarantee equal services to poor persons in the poorest areas compared with those in wealthier cities. Regression analyses indicate that higher levels of nonprofit antipoverty activity are likely to be found in older and centrally located cities with higher socioeconomic status and significant government contribution to the provision of social services. These findings suggest that nonprofits and governments ought to be seen as complements rather than substitutes in efforts to alleviate intrametropolitan poverty disparities.

Leveling the Playing Field? Urban Disparities in Funding for Local Parks and Recreation in the Los Angeles Region

Access to parks and recreational facilities, as well as their quality, congestion, and affordability, relates to physical activity levels and, in turn, various health outcomes. Yet park and recreational resources are often insufficient and unevenly distributed within metropolitan regions. This paper documents and analyzes the allocation of federal, state, special district, municipal, and nonprofit resources to parks and recreation facilities across municipalities within the Los Angeles region. Results indicate that local funding for parks and recreation resources is highly uneven (from less than

Building the Healthy City: The Role of Nonprofits in Creating Active Urban Parks

1 to over

The Spatial Determinants Of Wage Inequality: Evidence From Recent Latina Immigrants In Southern California

500 per capita annually). Because most park and recreation spending originates at the local level, fiscally healthier cities allocate more resources to these uses. State and nonprofits funds tend to favor middle-income communities and fail to equalize spending. Inner-ring suburbs with large minority populations, and low-income exurban communities are most likely to suffer from low expenditure. Federal devolution, increased localization of service provision, and limited intergovernmental transfers have resulted in large intrametropolitan disparities in the distribution of resources for parks and recreation, ultimately shaping the landscape of health risks for local populations.

Ethnic Concentration and Nonprofit Organizations: The Political and Urban Geography of Immigrant Services in Boston, Massachusetts

Access to parks and recreational opportunities contributes to physical activity and positive health outcomes. But who is responsible for building the healthy city, particularly where resources are limited? While neoliberal state restructuring and fiscal austerity measures have increased the responsibility of nonprofit organizations in local services provision, little is known about their role in promoting healthy urban environments. This article investigates the role of nonprofits in supporting parks and physical activity in Southern California and analyzes the relationships between levels of voluntary-sector activity and the socio-demographic, economic, and fiscal characteristics of municipalities. Results indicate that nonprofits are unevenly distributed and more active in affluent, fiscally stronger, suburban, conservative, and white municipalities, reproducing intra-urban differences underlying health disparities.

Spatial Segregation of the Poor in Southern California: A Multidimensional Analysis

Abstract Recent Latina immigrants to the United States earn lower hourly wages than any other broad demographic group. This paper investigates the role space and scale play in shaping the employment opportunities and wages this group receives in Southern California relative to others there. Results suggest that, although individual factors such as education, experience, and ability to speak English are important, spatial forces also influence wages. Access to jobs, particularly low-skilled jobs and those held by Latinos, as well as ethnic neighborhood networks, explain a large share of the variation in hourly wages. The paper provides evidence that labor-market scales differ across groups within US metropolitan areas, with recent Latina immigrants being more geographically constrained and hence more dependent on local opportunities and resources than other workers, with the exception of black women.

Ethnic markets and community food security in an urban “food desert”:

This article considers the geographic distribution of nonprofit organizations serving immigrants across municipalities within the Greater Boston area in an effort to identify variations in the levels of assistance available to major foreign-born populations in the region. The analysis relies on data from the Census and the National Center for Charitable Statistics. Results suggest that geographic context matters, including immigrant settlement patterns, racial heterogeneity, and fiscal and institutional characteristics of towns and cities, in shaping availability of nonprofit resources to immigrants. These findings highlight large socio-spatial disparities in immigrant services and challenge the wisdom of devolving responsibility for such assistance to local governments and ultimately nonprofits, as new entrants settle in larger numbers in areas previously unaffected by immigration and ill-prepared to address immigrant needs. The research contributes to debates on the rescaling of immigrant policy and service provision and literature on the geography of integration by engaging with scholarship in urban and political geography.

Gender, social network geographies, and low-wage employment among recent Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles

Poverty segregation increased in Southern California during the 1990s. A comparison of four indices reflecting various dimensions of segregation (e.g., evenness, concentration, isolation, and clustering) suggests that poor people are increasingly concentrated and isolated. However, cities within the region experienced different levels and types of segregation, with significant changes over time. Regression analysis using 1990 and 2000 census data highlights the role of demographic, economic, and fiscal variables in explaining the changing landscape of poverty. Whereas historically poor and older cities have seen a rise in poverty that translated into an increase in concentration and isolation, newer suburban communities have evolved differently. Cities where poverty has been high and increasing often maintained a high level of clustering and unevenness, but experienced higher levels of concentration and clustering in 2000. In contrast, wealthier cities typically faced a rise in unevenness and clustering as small pockets of poverty population emerged in the midst of high-income neighborhoods.

Planning for Resilience: Urban Nature and the Emotional Geographies of Children’s Political Engagement

In recent years, the concept of food desert has come to dominate research and policy debates around food environments and their impacts on health, with mounting evidence that low-income neighborhoods of color lack large supermarkets and therefore may have limited access to fresh, affordable, and healthy foods. We argue that this metaphor, which implies an absence of food, is misleading and potentially detrimental to the health of poor and racially diverse communities because it ignores the contribution of smaller stores, particularly that of so-called ethnic markets. Current applications of the food desert concept in this setting reflect classed and racialized understandings of the food environment that ignore the everyday geographies of food provision in immigrant communities while favoring external interventions. Our investigation of ethnic markets in City Heights, a low-income urban neighborhood in San Diego with a diverse immigrant population, offers evidence of their positive role in providing access to affordable, fresh, healthy, and culturally appropriate foods. Our results contribute to research by providing a nuanced description of the food environment beyond access to supermarkets, focusing specifically on immigrant neighborhoods, and pointing to ethnic markets as valuable partners in increasing food security in diverse urban areas.