Susan Greenbaum

Deconcentration and Social Capital: Contradictions of a Poverty Alleviation Policy

ABSTRACT Deconcentration is a policy aimed at reducing poverty by relocating residents of distressed public housing complexes into private mixed income neighborhoods. This change is presumed to offer new social opportunities and better public facilities that can facilitate improved economic status. HOPE VI is a federal U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program, which has effected this policy in a large number of U.S. cities. This paper reports the findings from research in two relocation sites (high and low poverty) in Tampa, Florida, based on interviews with HOPE VI relocatees and their homeowning neighbors. Results indicate that relocation does not enhance social capital for former public housing residents. Social networks are diminished in comparison with prior conditions in public housing. There is very little interaction with homeowners in relocation sites, and considerable resistance by homeowners. Relocatee satisfaction with housing is greater in the low poverty site, but social networks are not different across sites.

Territorial Personalization Group Identity and Social Interaction in a Slavic-American Neighborhood

This study examined variations in levels of exterior maintenance and adornment among the residents of a predominantly Slavic-American, inner-city neighborhood. Specific questions were: Is ethnic identity expressed in the exterior personalization of individual households? Are higher levels of personalization associated with higher levels of neighborhood-based social interaction? Results indicated that Slavic-Americans personalized more than their non-Slavic counterparts (p <.0001), and that homeowners exhibited more personalization than renters (p <.0001). Higher sociability scores were significantly associated with both Slavic-Americans (p < .0001) and long-term residents (p <.005). These results suggest that exterior personalization in neighborhoods may provide an ecological mechanism indicative of group membership and domain.

BRIDGING TIES AT THE NEIGHBORHOOD LEVEL

Abstract This paper examines the relevance of the “strength of weak ties” model (Granovetter 1973) in devising community development strategies for urban neighborhoods. The policy implications of this model for activities designed to promote neighborhood identification and cohesion are outlined, and Granovetters specific assumptions about the structure and functioning of urban neighborhood social networks are assessed in light of existing research. Little support is found for the presumed absence of bridging weak ties among urban neighbors, or for the assumption that strong ties create an obstacle to effective political mobilization in working-class neighborhoods. An alternative model of local-level integration is suggested, which retains Granovetters concept of dense clusters of network ties linked by “local bridges”, but re-examines the role of weak ties in effecting such bridges.

Comments on Katrina

What are the alternatives for alleviating the extreme poverty that was revealed in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in late August 2005? The options under consideration are to aid the dispersal of former residents of impoverished neighborhoods into more advantageous settings (either in the rebuilt city or within other parts of the United States), or to focus on reestablishing and strengthening communities that existed prior to the disaster. These are not mutually exclusive. My preference would be to assist those who want to start new lives elsewhere and also to enable those who want to return and recreate lost communities, such as the one that existed for generations in the Lower Ninth Ward. The persisting danger of such a low-lying site would have to be resolved, perhaps by consolidation in a higher section, or in a new place. What should be preserved, however, is the community that gave birth to the Mardi Gras Indians and other integral aspects of New Orleans culture. Underlying those traditions, and of greater importance, were the intergenerational networks of kinship, friendship, and mutual aid; the businesses and churches; and the high levels of home ownership that anchored people in spite of poverty. Xav’s advice about heeding “the public agenda and how it is shaped over time” is especially relevant. The possibilities for resettling the dislocated, rebuilding neighborhoods, stimulating economic growth, and protecting the environment are severely circumscribed by the ideology of those in charge. There has been much criticism of FEMA’s ineptitude. However, these problems are beyond bungling. Rather, they reflect a philosophy that the government is not really responsible for these matters, that the market should shape decisions and set priorities. Power to determine how, and if, neighborhoods are rebuilt rests on a competitive scramble to see which areas can muster enough resources by a certain date. This is a sure-fire formula for achieving HUD Secretary Alfonso Jackson’s stated desire for a New Orleans with fewer residents who are black or poor. Herbert Spencer would have liked this idea. The grim realities of the rebuilding process prompt me to avoid offering fruitless prescriptions about New Orleans. Instead, I want to engage more general principles involved in “assisted mobility” and the forced engineering of “mixed income” communities. It is on these issues that there is an honest disagreement among thoughtful researchers and policy makers. Residential concentrations of very low-income people—neighborhoods with blighted housing, inadequate schools and public services, limited job opportunities, environmental contaminants, and repeated exposure to criminal activities—aggravate the disadvantages that poor children face from the moment of their birth. There is no debate about that. The issue concerns what policy initiatives might solve this conundrum.