Racial Stratification and the Durable Tangle of Neighborhood Inequality

Robert J. Sampson
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Robert J. Sampson: Department of Sociology at Harvard University

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2009, vol. 621, issue 1, 260-280

Abstract: This article revisits neglected arguments of the Moynihan Report to yield insights for a contemporary understanding of racial inequality in American cities. The author argues that the logic of Moynihan's reasoning implies three interlinked hypotheses: (1) the tangle of “pathology,†or what today we call social dislocations, has a deep neighborhood structure, as does socioeconomic disadvantage; (2) the tangle of neighborhood inequality is durable and generates self-reinforcing properties that, because of racial segregation, are most pronounced in the black community; and (3) neighborhood “poverty traps†can ultimately only be broken with government structural interventions and macro-level policies. Examining longitudinal neighborhood-level data from Chicago and the United States as a whole, the author finds overall support for these hypotheses. Despite urban social transformations in the post-Moynihan era, neighborhoods remained remarkably stable in their relative economic standing. Poverty is also stubbornly persistent in its ecological concentration with other social disadvantages, especially in the black community.

Keywords: Daniel Patrick Moynihan; The Negro Family; Chicago; neighborhoods; durable inequality; “poverty trapsâ€; racial stratification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:621:y:2009:i:1:p:260-280

DOI: 10.1177/0002716208324803

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