The Causes of Inner-City Poverty: Eight Hypotheses in Search of Reality

Abstract

Over the past 40 years, poverty among the inhabitants of U.S. inner cities has remained stubbornly resistant to public policy prescriptions. Especially for AfricanIt is now more than 12 years since the publication of William J. Wilson and Robert Aponte's (1985) survey of urban poverty in the United States. That report still stands alone as an effort to produce "a state of the art review of research and theoretical writing on urban poverty" (Wilson and Aponte, 1985). However, in the intervening years, there has been much work on and even more debate about the nature and causes of poverty in U.S. inner cities. Much of the contribution, indeed, may be attributed to Wilson, who has sparked a new round of work in the field. At the same time, there has been a wave of interest in reform that is intended to respond to the seemingly intractable nature of urban poverty. This article surveys both the research on and the controversies over its validity and its policy implications. It is not comprehensive, but it does attempt to make sense of an enormous body of ideas and research that bear on the topic of inner-city poverty. It seeks to clarify the principal themes of urban poverty that seem to us to be part of current intellectual discourse. We do this by suggesting hypotheses about inner-city poverty that are part of the debates about its causes and what should be done.

Profiles and Causes of Urban Poverty in Small Islands: A Case in Ambon City, Maluku Islands Indonesia

“…Therefore, there are many complex reasons for urban poverty but there is no one solution that fit to all because to alleviate urban poverty needs holistic, systemic and comprehensive approach [33]. However, the main target of urban poverty are those households who are living in the center and periphery of the city.…”

An Examination of Factors that Influence Health Behaviors among Low Income African American Women with Type 2 Diabetes in Memphis, TN: A Qualitative Inquiry Using Mixed Methods

“…A paper written in 1998 by Michael Teitz and Karren Chapple eloquently outlines eight potential causes of inner-city poverty. They point out that residents living in areas that are isolated, segregated, and crime-ridden are characterized by low labor-market attachment, low educational achievement, and a wide range of socially reproved behaviors, including welfare dependency, drug use, singleparent households, and participation in the underground economy (Teitz & Chapple, 1998), each of which can ultimately contribute to poor health status. Additionally, sociologists and anthropologists have been effective in capturing the study of life situations of people in poverty, where living entails functional adaption to difficult environmental circumstances (Teitz and Chapple, 1998).…”

“…Neighborhood effects, or concentration effects, can occur as poverty is increasingly concentrated in certain neighborhoods (Teitz & Chapple, 1998). As the incomes of neighborhood residents decline to levels unable to support a viable retail sector or to maintain housing, a spiral of abandonment and decay can occur (Teitz & Chapple, 1998).…”

“…Neighborhood effects, or concentration effects, can occur as poverty is increasingly concentrated in certain neighborhoods (Teitz & Chapple, 1998). As the incomes of neighborhood residents decline to levels unable to support a viable retail sector or to maintain housing, a spiral of abandonment and decay can occur (Teitz & Chapple, 1998). When the area becomes a high-poverty neighborhood, average educational attainment levels decrease, and teenage pregnancy and high school dropout rates may increase dramatically (Teitz & Chapple, 1998).…”

“…As the incomes of neighborhood residents decline to levels unable to support a viable retail sector or to maintain housing, a spiral of abandonment and decay can occur (Teitz & Chapple, 1998). When the area becomes a high-poverty neighborhood, average educational attainment levels decrease, and teenage pregnancy and high school dropout rates may increase dramatically (Teitz & Chapple, 1998). Additionally, segregation itself can cause poverty and propagation of misinformation, also exacerbating negative health status.…”