![]() ![]() The conjunction of Wilson’s argument and evidence for the growth and concentration of an urban underclass has led to renewed interest in the role of neighborhoods and communities in the processes that create, maintain, or help to ameliorate the conditions that are typically subsumed under the urban underclass concept. 1 Many current conceptualizations of the urban underclass center around the conjunction of three factors: (1) the spatial concentration of disadvantage (e.g., income poverty, low labor-force participation rates) (2) persistent poverty-often associated with extended welfare dependency and the intergenerational transmission of poverty and/or (3) non-normative behaviors (e.g., crime, drug abuse, out-of-wedlock birth, participation in an “unrecorded” or “illicit economy”). Regardless of the particular definition of the underclass that one accepts, there is evidence that the size of the urban underclass grew substantially after 1970, that it became more spatially concentrated, and that the population is predominately black and Hispanic (Bane and Jargowsky 1988 Mincy 1988 Ricketts and Sawhill 1988 Hughes 1988). He argues that the decline of central-city manufacturing, the suburbanization of employment, and the out-migration of middle-class black families from ghetto areas have left behind destitute communities lacking the institutions, resources, and role models necessary for success in post-industrial society. Some have argued that the increasing concentration of minority poor in urban areas may relegate the residents to persistent poverty and “social pathologies.” In his 1987 book, The Truly Disadvantaged, William Julius Wilson emphasizes the role of neighborhoods in shaping the lives of the poor. Recent discussions of the urban underclass have begun to focus attention on the consequences that living in particular neighborhoods may have for their residents.
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