| On September 25, 2000, COSSA held its third and final congressional
briefing of the year, How Neighborhoods Matter: The Value of Investing
at the Local Level. The American Sociological Association co-sponsored
the briefing. Three distinguished social scientists shared their research
findings about neighborhoods and how and why neighborhoods matter beyond
the individual attributes of the people who live there.
The briefing addressed such questions as how neighborhood conditions are intertwined in producing health-related risks, how neighborhoods connect to different patterns of school achievement in children and youth, and how discrimination affects the quality of life and even the costs of living in neighborhoods. Troy Duster, Chancellor's Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley and Professor of Sociology at New York University moderated the briefing. He began by asking the standing-room-only crowd (that included Federal agency officials and congressional staffers), What is the connection between neighborhoods and well-being? "We all grew up in neighborhoods; they are the social context in which we frame our lives," explained Duster. However, neighborhoods are a difficult topic to study, he emphasized. What is needed are new strategies for studying the effects of neighborhoods — in particular, those that do not treat "social context" as a trait. Neighborhoods and Health Consequences Robert J. Sampson, Lucy Flower Professor in Sociology at the University of Chicago and Senior Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation, addressed questions of how neighborhood conditions are intertwined in producing health-related risks. Sampson began by emphasizing that social characteristics vary widely and systematically across neighborhoods, especially along dimensions of socio-economic status (e.g., poverty, affluence), family structure |
(e.g., female-headed households), residential stability (e.g., home
ownership and tenure) and racial/ethnic composition (e.g., racial segregation).
Research has long linked neighborhood characteristics with variations in mortality, general physical health, and psychological well-being even after individual attributes and risky behaviors are taken into consideration. Despite this research, Sampson emphasized that we know little regarding the common underlying factors behind the findings because of the paucity of data. Past research has been limited to census data — we need to move beyond that, he said. Sampson also highlighted that experimental research has demonstrated neighborhood connections to violence and a number of health outcomes. Concentrated disadvantage is a predictor of lower levels of neighborhood social control and cohesion. It appears to influence violence and other high-risk outcome in part by diminishing the collective efficacy of residents in achieving neighborhood social control. Research also reveals important spatial dynamics at work that go well beyond the geographic borders of neighborhoods, noted Sampson. Spatial proximity to neighborhoods high in violence is one of the strongest predictors of homicide in any given neighborhood, regardless of its own economic resources and social composition. Neighborhoods and Education Min Zhou, Professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, discussed the significance of community for the education of immigrant children. Zhou noted that more than half of the metropolitan population are either first generation immigrants or U.S. born children of immigrants, compared to 20 percent of the total U.S. population. She added that more than half of second generation immigrants are under 15 years of age.
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For a copy of "How Neighborhoods Matter" send an email with your name and address to cossa@cossa.org.