Suburban Poverty and Racial Segregation

Over the past thirty years, increasing numbers of low-income people live in suburbs in the United States, with an increased proportion of racial and ethnic minorities among them (Covington, Freeman, & Stoll, 2011; Frey, 2011; Howell & Timberlake, 2014; Puentes & Warren, 2006). In urban areas, increases in poverty rates have been marked by increases in racial and ethnic segregation among people living in poverty (Logan & Stults, 2010; Massey, 1990; Orfield & Luce, 2012). What is less clear from the research on suburban poverty is how much racial segregation exists. For example, some research indicates that there is more segregation among black people in the suburbs than in urban areas (Darden & Kamel, 2002) whereas other research finds that black people in the suburbs are less likely to live in segregated communities than black people in urban areas (Alba, Logan, & Stults, 2000). This paper presents findings from a new set analyses, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, to first examine the distribution of poverty across different kinds of suburban communities and then the degree of racial and ethnic segregation within and across different kinds of suburban communities. The goal of the analyses is to better understand how policy solutions might best address racial and economic inequality in the suburbs

The impact of life course exposures to neighbourhood deprivation on health and well-being: a review of the long-term neighbourhood effects literature

BACKGROUND:In this review article, we detail a small but growing literature in the field of health geography that uses longitudinal data to determine a life course component to the neighbourhood effects thesis. For too long, there has been reliance on cross-sectional data to test the hypothesis that where you live has an effect on your health and well-being over and above your individual circumstances. METHODS:We identified 53 articles that demonstrate how neighbourhood deprivation measured at least 15 years prior affects health and well-being later in life using the databases Scopus and Web of Science. RESULTS:We find a bias towards US studies, the most common being the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Definition of neighbourhood and operationalization of neighbourhood deprivation across most of the included articles relied on data availability rather than a priori hypothesis. CONCLUSIONS:To further progress neighbourhood effects research, we suggest that more data linkage to longitudinal datasets is required beyond the narrow list identified in this review. The limited literature published to date suggests an accumulation of exposure to neighbourhood deprivation over the life course is damaging to later life health, which indicates improving neighbourhoods as early in life as possible would have the greatest public health improvement