Neighborhood effects, neighborhood problems and policy solutions

1. Neighborhood effects, neighborhood problems and policy solutions Discussant’s Comments on Policy Responses to Neighborhood effects on Education, Work, Crime, and Health 7 April, 2011 William A.V. Clark University of California Los Angeles/ CHR St Andrews

2. Introduction • Places are different • Neighborhood conceptions are both positive – (Beverly Hills, Faubourg St Honore) and negative– wrong side of the tracks, lower east side, dog town, pole town – stigmatization • Place based interventions are a response to difference, usually to negative differences

3. Basis of intervention Neighborhoods are (identifiable) • Distinctive social worlds; • Territorially bounded; • Organization based on local institutions;

4. But of varying form • Nominal Neighborhoods: named, but no precise limits; • Absolute Neighborhoods: explicitly defined areas; • Functional Neighborhoods: activity based; • Community neighborhoods: interaction based;

5. Three Seminars • The question/s across two previous seminars have been about whether we have a theory of neighborhood effects and how do we understand dynamic neighborhoods -what is the role of place • Now, can we intervene with ABI’s – what is the policy impetus and how sure are we that we can make a difference with ABI

7. Overview • Four papers on substantive issues that have place relevance (presuming we have neighborhood theory) • Education, worklessness, crime and health • All are central issues for social well being • Implicit assumption is that we know “the effect” and we can do something about it (take each paper in turn).

8. Education • Response to poor education outcomes – improve system, target neighborhoods • ABI clearly linked to wider regeneration of areas (evidence?) • Still only partially successful because meso level approach but need macro too • Need to go from redistribution to recognition (but how, not spelled out) • Solution – give power back to schools and communities – but how and do they want it?

9. Worklessness • Persistent spatial concentration of worklessness • Best route out of poverty is work - so deal with worklessness in deprived neighborhoods • Causes –usual suspects (econ restr., culture of worklessness, social capital, stigmatization, poor public transport) • To intervene need to know the types of worklessness (can we distinguish and how?) • But again, policies have limited impact (p.16) and do not do much (p.19)-no significant difference in gap between most and least deprived • Interventions at local level poorly positioned to deal with wider change in labor markets

10. Crime • A lot of interest from Sampson’s work on collective efficacy and role of trust, by extension neighborhood capacity for informal control. • BUT Really only one study and there are questions about the robustness of the results (Veysey and Messner) • Still not a lot on HOW the neighborhood works, this paper tackles that question • Specifically they show that people look beyond the immediate neighborhood • That is the neighborhood is more than the neighborhood and it reiterates the issue of neighborhood definition.

11. Crime (2) • Ok but what should we do, what is the policy implication of this research?

12. Health • The paper examines two questions – is poor health concentrated and do socially disadvantaged neighborhoods experience lower quality physical environments. • A discussion of smoking outcomes is used as a springboard to discussions of environmental justice • Sorting/ migration is identified as a major factor in the creation of difference – who leaves who enters becomes determinant. • But health behavior effects are elusive – no or low association of access and outcomes • What does this mean for policy?

13. Health (2) • The smoking study – two processes: • Selection effects in migration such that those prone to smoking are more likely to end up in one place than another • And, smokers are more likely to move to areas where other smokers are more likely to live • Question: is the location decision made by smokers vis a vis non smokers because they are smokers or because they happen to be of low socio economic status and it is the status that is causing locational clustering?

14. A digression on Income and Health

15. Income distribution

16. Observations • Neighborhood effect or income effect? • And how to deal with the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP)

17. Health by Neighborhood Type

18. Life expectancy in Glasgow 14km apart: 28 year difference in life expectancy Lenzie Life expectancy=82 Calton Life expectancy=54

19. What is the question-from a policy perspective • Are the areas different because of population composition • Are they different from treatment effects - one area has superior facilities and staff • Are they different BECAUSE there are area effects – noxious industry, lead paint etc WHAT IS THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF EACH

20. The underlying question • If the bulk of the difference is composition effects then • THE QUESTION IS HOW THESE AREAS ENDED UP WITH SUCH DIFFERENT COMPOSITIONS • The answer – residential sorting ( see Clark and Morrison -Residential sorting, neighbourhood effects and social mobility: evidence from a large scale survey) • but what are the processes which “sorted” people into these two neighborhoods?

21. Concluding observations • Sorting out the sorting process is central to understanding the uneven concentrations of socio –economic groups • Unless we can sort out the sorting process we won’t get close to sorting out the neighborhood effects

22. Review and Overview • They (neighborhood effects) may be mostly an area outcome not an area affect; • If neighborhood effects exist, they are probably small, may be dependent upon your definition of neighborhood, and difficult to detect; • Analysis of outlier neighborhoods may be more useful (e.g, poor neighborhoods with good health OR wealthy neighborhoods with poor health); • A sorting focus gives us both theory and testable measures.