Dealing with living in poor neighbourhoods

Abstract

In this prologue to the special issue, the guest editors place the contributions in the context of current debates on living in concentrated poverty neighbourhoods. These debates concern two broad categories of residents: poor households that are assisted to move from concentrations of poverty to lower-poverty areas (movers); and households (not exclusively the poor) that cannot move out of poor neighbourhoods or are not willing to do so, for various reasons (stayers). For the first category, the main issue is whether housing vouchers provide movers only with better housing or also with other social, psychological and economic benefits. A wealth of (partly contradictory) evidence justifies exploring a fundamental question: What should housing vouchers do? With regard to those unwilling or unable to move out of poor neighbourhoods, we focus on how residents cope with the recurrent problems and stressful circumstances in poor neighbourhoods. Here, four interrelated concepts are central to our discussion: place attachment, coping tactics, territoriality, and social network formation. Our discussion paves the way for the subsequent five papers, each dealing with one of the selected topics. The aim of this special issue is to provide new evidence that underpins or questions the current debates on living in or leaving neighbourhoods with concentrated poverty. The research reported here was done in the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands.

El papel de las redes familiares en las decisiones de inmovilidad espacial en el área metropolitana de Granada

“…Se asume un trade-off que implica que a menos recursos formales, más necesidad de recursos informales (Van Groenou y Van Tilburg 2003). Tal como Fors y Lennartsson (2008) apuntan, los individuos con menor estatus socioeconómico necesitan de la cercanía de sus familiares, aun cuando sus lazos de parentesco puedan ser ambivalentes o de naturaleza conflictiva (Kleinhans, van der Land y Doff 2010). En segundo lugar, los grupos sociales más desfavorecidos pueden haber "heredado" en gran medida esta condición de sus familias (van Ham et al 2014).…”

Housing Supply and How It Is Related to Social Inequalities—Air Pollution, Green Spaces, Crime Levels, and Poor Areas—In Catalonia

“…This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that there is a large volume of greenery in the rural areas of Catalonia. The evidence shows that historically there has been residential segregation, with poverty concentrated in zones or neighbourhoods [ 121 , 122 ]. These areas end up becoming communities of vulnerable people, perpetuating the poverty trap [ 123 , 124 ].…”

Quality of Life in Poor Neighborhoods through the Lenses of the Capability Approach—A Case Study of a Deprived Area of Łódź City Centre

“…The magnitude and the scope of mechanisms that were observed in the analyzed areas enabled the author to draw the conclusion that the residents of the pilot area in Łód ż city center were caught within a web of social exclusion that was very hard to leave. Kleinhaus et al [81] described such residents as stayers rather than movers, who have opportunities for residential and social mobility. Moreover, Kleinhaus et al [81] referred to the network of poverty, while emphasizing the complexity and the persistence of the phenomena connected to poverty.…”

“…Kleinhaus et al [81] described such residents as stayers rather than movers, who have opportunities for residential and social mobility. Moreover, Kleinhaus et al [81] referred to the network of poverty, while emphasizing the complexity and the persistence of the phenomena connected to poverty. Whereas in this paper, a broader perspective was taken by covering the different life domains that lowered the QoL in the analyzed area, it has been argued that the established web of social exclusion can be seen as a broader extension of the network of poverty by, e.g., [81].…”

“…A somewhat less prominent issue in this field is that of the residents' attachment to their local environment. Place attachment refers to the emotional bonds people develop through their behavioral, affective, and cognitive ties to social and physical environments [77][78][79][80][81]. Despite the large body of literature on neighborhood effects in particular domains, the number of studies that have provided a comprehensive multidimensional assessment of quality of life is more limited.…”