1. University of California at Berkeley December 12, 2013 Malte Nyfos Mathiasen
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How
Neighborhoods
affect
Choice
and
Well-­‐being
Review
of
methodological
inquiries
with
experiments,
statistical
network
analy-­‐
sis
and
the
politicalized
structural
critique
in
urban
sociology
The
context
for
neighborhood
effects
and
the
Chicago
School
The city is most famously encapsulated as a highly populated, dense and heterogeneous entity
(Wirth, 1338: 10). Since the emergence of urban sociology, the neighbourhoods have been of
pivotal interest from scholars, who comprehend neighborhoods as manifold units that consti-
tute a mosaic of the heterogeneous city.
“Proximity and neighbourly contact are the basis for the simplest and most elementary
form of association with which we have to do in the organization of city life” (Park & Bur-
gess, 1925: 7).
The neighbourhood is therefore an obvious entity for analysis both as dependent and inde-
pendent variable.
Recently, statistical analysis and experiments have innovated the knowledge about neighbor-
hood effects emphasizing disorganization and lack of social capital. Statistical methods aspire
to distinguish homophily and contextual effects to isolate individual effect by complex de-
signs, but other questions remains partially unelaborated: Wacquant offers an interesting cri-
tique of the non-social and naturalizing foundation of neighbourhood effects excluding exter-
nal factors and truncating the independent variable. The research questions conventionally
emphasize poor and urban neighbourhoods though spatial analysis often looses it clarity due
to segmentation into different disciplines such as criminology, rural studies, and anthropolog-
ical observations (Wacquant, 2010: 168).
This review aims to revisit the most common concepts of urban studies and neighbourhood
effects. Firstly, I summarize the original concepts of urban studies, secondly, I elaborate the
critique of the dominant and important paradigm of the Chicago School. Third- and fourthly, I
describe the new development in the Chicago School and the ‘gold standard’ of experiments

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and statistical analysis in the case of Great American City and Moving to Opportunity
(Sampson, 2012; de Souza Briggs et al, 2010). At last, I shortly argue that these books partial-
ly incorporate the critique in the research design, and I conclude and discuss the relevance in
an European and Danish context.
Concentration
effects
and
disorganization
in
the
“underclass”
The movement of high wage industrial jobs and black middle class is the context for Wilson’s
classical argument that it had created “a new and isolated “urban underclass” defined by con-
centrated minority poverty in inner-city neighborhoods” (Wilson quoted in de Souza Briggs et
al, 2010: 598). Concentration effects is a close equivalent to neighborhood effects and overtly
the relevant variables tend to be minorities - especially Afro Americans, and poverty, which is
often operationalized as income, single mothers, violence, crime, drugs, welfare dependency,
unemployment, and educational level (de Souza Briggs et al, 2010: 759; Newman & Small,
2001: 31). By isolation the scholars mean that they are disorganized and isolated from net-
works that could provide good schools, personal security and more generally political influ-
ence functional help from public organizations (de Souza Briggs et al, 2010: 448). The thesis
of an urban underclass has been object for intense scholarly debate, since welfare dependency
and phrases such as a culture of poverty was interpreted as a behavioral pathology implying
guilt and stigma for the inner-city dwellers (Wacquant, 2008: 91).
More contemporary, the definition of high-poverty neighborhoods and sometimes ghettos as
areas with 40 % below the poverty line is a common referred starting point. When Small &
Newman review the neighborhood effect literature, they indicate tentatively that neighbor-
hood effects are strongest in a) the lifecycle of childhood and late adolescence, b) family ef-
fects tend to be stronger, and c) social networks link and transcend neighborhoods (2001: 25).
They argue that the definition of neighborhoods face three interlinked problems:
“…conceptualizing neighborhoods, drawing their geographic boundaries, and determining
what neighborhood characteristics should be used to measure disadvantage” (ibid.: 30). Often
neighborhood is understood as community, but this definition fails to exhaust the tension be-
tween a geographic space and a social network. Thus we might look at other approaches,
which can define the neighborhood separately and complementary as a) social space, b) set of
relationships, c) set of institutions d) a symbolic unit or as a) sites, b) perceptions, c) networks
and cultures (ibid.: 30f).

3. University of California at Berkeley December 12, 2013 Malte Nyfos Mathiasen
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Critique
of
the
Chicago
School
Wacquant criticizes the Chicago School for ignoring the structural and political circumstances
under which these neighborhoods have evolved. Comparable Sánchez-Jankowskis (2008) ar-
gues that neighborhood institutions matter. Wacquant argues that the Chicago School suffers
from two false assumptions. Initially, they perceive the city as a closed system (Wacquant,
2013: 2) thus neglecting external factors such as other structural, economic and state policies,
which neighborhoods are sensitive to. Secondly, ecological and biotic dynamics are assumed.
The city evolves unplanned, natural and according to its own logic, which disguise and imbed
the agents’ interests and power equilibriums.
Wacquant has also elaborated the concept of the ghetto around Goffman’s theory of stigma
(1963) and Bourdieu’s theory of social space (1989) that differ from the everyday use of the
phrase. He observes that the communal black ghetto in the US has imploded and divided into
a contemporary “hyperghetto” and black middle class neighborhood and on the other hand
“antighettos” in Europe without the level of segregation as in the US (Wacquant, 2008). The
ghetto is a subtype of neighborhood and illustrates sampling on the depending variable, which
ignores richer neighborhoods and truncates the phenomenon (Wacquant, 2010: 166). The
ghetto and poor neighborhoods tend to be selected without a robust conceptualization by
scholars, because of policy interest, research funds and a narrow prescription, why Wacquant
labels “neighborhood effects” studies for a “cottage industry” and a misconceptualization of
state and structural effects. (Wacquant, 2013: 6; Slater: 2013).
The
Moving
to
Opportunity
social
experiment
Moving to Opportunity and Great American City both apply a mixed-method approach to tri-
angulate their data and build better contextual theory (de Souza Briggs et al, 2010: 3870). The
book Moving to Opportunity is a part of a large randomized housing mobility experiment
sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, in which 4.600 fami-
lies participated during the 1994. They were either assigned to a control group, a private mar-
ket standard counseling and voucher subsidy group or the experimental group, who addition-
ally received relocation counseling and search assistance (ibid.: 3780). de Souza Briggs et al
state that this method is the best to determine neighborhoods effect over and above family-
level influence and because of the design, the effect should be attributable to the experiment
but not necessarily attributable to living in particular kinds of neighborhood. He considers the
results as rather robust descriptive accounts of family experience and choice than treatment

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effects and unbiased causal estimates. (ibid.: 3773, 3799). Stating the method above as the
best, can, in my view, be considered a ‘gold standard’ and impact how other can approach
neighborhood effects in urban studies.
To explain the mechanism of family experience and choice of neighborhood, a meaningful
choice can be conceptualized economically as affected by a supply and demand site. On the
supply side, poor people can either choose to live in a lousy apartment in a decent neighbor-
hood or a better unit in a risky neighborhood (ibid.: 3625) The housing voucher program from
1974 is the largest national expenditure program regarding very low-income people and thus
tend to be of pivotal interest (ibid.: 3548). The results show that safety is the main listed rea-
son for choosing neighborhood.
Related to risk and choice, the voucher experiment tends to show some success in keeping
families out of risky neighborhoods, unexposed from risky social and expanding the possibili-
ties for poor neighborhoods families (ibid.:3532). Apart from the account of experience and
choice from families, another outcome is a proposal for a further theory of change, which I
argue is more targeted institutions and policy makers. Here they describe how programs
should identify move-ready clients, adequate neighborhoods and help them leverage and miti-
gate through the transitional period (ibid.: 3694).
Allard & Small question the generalized effect of Moving to Opportunity and randomized ex-
periments further by arguing that site-level administrative and local organization dynamics
should be included in explaining variance in effect. Particularly, the theory of change is sub-
mitted isolated from institutional frameworks and the neighborhood effects tend often to be
over – or underestimated, and the Moving to Opportunity project results appear to be surpris-
ingly inconsistent (Allard & Small, 2013: 14f, Small & Feldman, 2012: 1).
Sampson’s
statistical
and
social
network
analysis
As part of his study, Sampson replicates a lost letter experiment and monitors the Emergency
Medical Service recorded data on cardiac arrest with respectively 3.300 and 4.4379 incidents
(Sampson, 2012: 219ff). The return rate and response time vary widely and are used as indi-
cators for moral cynicism and altruism and more broadly collective efficacy. Neighborhood
proximity and connectedness are indicators for the status of the neighborhood.
“Collective efficacy” is a unified concept for social cohesion and shared expectations for con-
trol that Sampson uses to measure neighborhood effects. Social network analysis methods

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such as proximity and connectedness measure the social ties as indicators for the status of the
neighborhood and prominent organizations. He finds that ”place” and neighborhood effects
matter a lot, even in a time where the general perception of its importance has diminished
(Sampson, 2012: 3, 56, 152ff). His results outline the church as an ineffective social institu-
tion, but other social events, non-profit organization, the imbeddedness of civic society and
governmental institutions are effective and pivotal for the well-being of the neighborhood
(Sampson, 2012: 241). In this manner, Sampson tend to include many variable structural
properties, but most of them demarcates the neighborhood strictly from the surrounding socie-
ty, and therefore tends to be a very different structural analysis than Wacquant’s outline.
Conclusion
The original Chicago School thesis of concentration effects and disorganization still has fun-
damental usage-value, and I consider that Great American City and Moving to Opportunity
better can be understood with reference to and as variations of the Chicago School, where the-
se scholars also often contextualize themselves. Sampson and Small even write from the
physical location of Chicago. Almost a century have passed since Parks proposed the city as a
closed and biologic system, and Sampson and de Souza Briggs et al have today refined their
theories underscoring “collective efficacy” and the constraint in choice for poor neighborhood
families. Wacquant refuses the notion of “neighborhood effects” as a misconceptualization
and the attribution to space instead of social, governmental, and structural factors. Both Small
& Allard and Wacquant tend to agree that urban poverty studies need “conceptual and empiri-
cal work on (1) organizations, (2) systems, and (3) institutions” from other scholarly fields to
dissect the dynamics imbedded in neighborhoods (Allard and Small, 2013: 9).
In
a
European
context
As the Kerner Commision reported in 1968, the segregation of Afro American in poor neigh-
borhoods is a severe American issue, where European minorities tend to be more dispersed in
different neighborhoods (de Souza Briggs et al, 2010: 3706). In a Danish and more vaguely in
an European context, we do not observe the same level of poverty and segregation. The
neighborhood effects might still exist and be followed closely by European scholars, but the
interaction effect with stigma is more occurring and an obvious choice for further studies,
where we e.g. in Denmark see a governmental ghetto list and propagated discrimination
against Muslim and Arabic descendants. Therefore, the scope of future research may learn
from the national as well as the international level to ask the paramount question for the con-
text.

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