The Making of a Ghetto: Spatially Concentrated Poverty in New York City in the 1980s

In recent years a debate has arisen over which of two mechanisms - class selective household mobility or spatially focused increases in poverty - has been the driving force in concentrating poverty in certain inner-city neighborhoods. This paper utilizes a multivariate analysis to identify the processes underlying areal income-class transition in New York City during 1978-1987, and the areal characteristics that predict a consistent path of change. By anchoring the analysis at the level of the individual housing unit, this study disentangles the competing mechanisms of poverty concentration and demonstrates that both selective mobility and shifts in income class contribute to areal income-class transition, but that the latter mechanism accounts for a greater amount of change. Further, after controlling for the proportion of minority residents and public housing units in the area, the results show that location in poor areas is associated with poor in-movement, nonpoor out-movement, and downward shifts in the income class among long-term residents. These mutually reinforcing processes lead to continued decline in extreme- and high-poverty areas, while processes in the opposite direction sustain the economic vitality of low-poverty areas.