Neighborhood Effects

Assessed a community empowerment model of grassroots organizing and an ecological framework of physical, economic, and social environmental predictors of participation in grassroots community organizations. Individual and block-level observational data and 2,500 interviews of residents and follow-up interviews with organization leaders from 3 cities were used to predict participation cross-sectionally and after a 1-yr lag. Longitudinal data from 1 city were used to predict the viability of block associations 7 yrs later. Defensible space and incivilities were sometimes negatively and sometimes positively related to participation. Income, home ownership, minority status, and residential stability were positively but inconsistently related to participation. Community-focused social cognitions and behaviors consistently positively predicted individual and block-level participation. The model explained up to 28% and 52% of the variance in individual and block-level participation, respectively.

Examines the sense of community (SOC) within neighborhoods and the dimensions of social capital (SC). We have four main goals for this chapter. One is to inform researchers and program planners in community development, urban policy, and social services that many concepts thoroughly studied by community psychologists (sense of community, collective efficacy/empowerment, citizen participation, neighboring) are part of SC. Our second goal is to introduce more community psychologists to SC. Third, to both audiences, we expect to show that residential neighborhood SOC is at least as strongly related to other SC dimensions as are demographics and other widely studied community-focused cognitions (place attachment, community satisfaction, community confidence, and communitarianism--or community values). In addition to those interdisciplinary aims, our fourth goal is to explore SOC and its relationships to SC using multi-level analysis. The relationship between SOC and SC--whether they operate together, separately, or nested one within the other--and on what level(s) they operate are critical to our understanding of both concepts.

The issue of “housing” has generally not been granted an important role in post-war political economy. Housing-as-policy has been the preserve of social policy analysis and of a growing field of housing studies; housing-as-market has been confined to mainstream economics. This paper insists that political-economic analysis can no longer remain relatively indifferent to the housing question since housing is implicated in the contemporary capitalist political economy in numerous critical, connected, and very often contradictory ways. The paper conceptualizes this implication by identifying the multiple roles of housing when “capital” – the essential “stuff” of political economy – is considered from the perspective of each of its three primary, mutually-constitutive guises: as process of circulation, as social relation, and as ideology. Mobilizing these three optics to provide a critical overall picture of housing-in-political-economy (more than a political
economy of housing), we draw on and weave together the many vital contributions of housing research to our evolving understanding of capitalism.

Keywords: housing, political economy, capital, circulation, ideology, social relations

Little attention has been paid to date to the role of the neighbourhood as a factor influencing residential mobility and the residential choice process. The question addressed here is to what extent neighbourhood characteristics (percentage of rented dwellings, low income households and ethnic minorities in the neighbourhood) influence different categories residents wish to leave their neighbourhood. The answer to this question is capable of enhancing our understanding of residential mobility and mechanisms causing segregation by income and ethnic groups. We use data from the 2002 Netherlands Housing Demand Survey, enriched with neighbourhood characteristics. Whether or not people wish to leave their neighbourhood is estimated using a multilevel logistic regression model with cross-level interaction effects between individual and neighbourhood characteristics. The main result shows that with an increasing percentage of people from an ethnic minority in the neighbourhood, more people have the wish to leave the neighbourhood. However, this is to a lesser extent the case for members of ethnic minorities themselves.

Acculturation represents an important construct for elucidating the determinants and consequences of health disparities in minority populations. However, the processes and mechanisms underlying acculturation's effects on health are largely undetermined and warrant further study. We integrate concepts from anthropology and statistics to describe the role of sociocultural context as a putative modifier of the relationship between acculturation and health. Sociocultural context may influence the extent to which exposure to host culture leads to internalization of host cultural orientation and may influence the extent to which acculturation leads to stress and adoption of unhealthy behaviors. We focus on specific aspects of sociocultural context: (1) neighborhood ethno-cultural composition; (2) discrimination; (3) discrepancy between origin and host environments; (4) discrepancy between heritage and host cultures; (5) origin group, host group, and individual attitudes toward assimilation; (6) variation in targets of assimilation within host community; (7) public policy and resources; and (8) migration selection bias. We review and synthesize evidence for these moderation effects among first-and later-generation immigrants, refugees, and indigenous populations. Furthermore, we propose best-practices data-collection and statistical-analysis methods for this purpose, in order to improve our understanding of the complex, multilevel aspects of the relationship between acculturation and health.

Recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the city of Copán was a major center of Maya culture during the Classic Period (AD 250–900). While archaeologists have been traditionally concerned with the top-down despotic power of Maya rulers, I show how infrastructural power—the ability of the state to affect the everyday lives of its residents—waxed and waned. As a representative subset of the city at large, the intermediate scale of neighborhoods best reveals effects of and reactions to state power. I focus on political dynamics at six households within the San Lucas neighborhood, attending to episodes of landscape engineering, architectural construction, and artifactual trends. I consider these changes together with political events recorded in hieroglyphic inscriptions at Copán Center. This correlation shows whether and how state policies altered the daily lives of residents. Incorporating a bottom-up perspective from the intermediate scale of neighborhoods enables an integrated assessment of citywide political dynamics

Serious youthful offenders are presented with a number of significant challenges when trying to make a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood.  One of the biggest obstacles for these youth to overcome concerns their ability to desist from further antisocial behavior, and although an emerging body of research has documented important risk and protective factors associated with desistance, the importance of the neighborhoods within which these youth reside has been understudied.  Guided by the larger neighborhood effects on crime literature, the current study examines the direct and indirect effects of concentrated disadvantage on youth reoffending among a sample of highly mobile, serious youthful offenders.  We use data from Pathways to Desistance, a longitudinal study of serious youthful offenders (N = 1,354; 13.6% female; 41.4% African American, 33.5% Hispanic, 20.2% White), matched up with 2000 Census data on neighborhood conditions for youth’s main residence location during waves 7 and 8 of the study.  These waves represent the time period in which youth are navigating the transition to adulthood (aged 18 to 22; average age = 20).  We estimate structural equation models to determine direct effects of concentrated disadvantage on youth reoffending and also to examine the possible indirect effects working through individual-level mechanisms as specified by theoretical perspectives including social control (e.g., unsupervised peer activities), strain (e.g., exposure to violence), and learning (e.g., exposure to antisocial peers).  Additionally, we estimate models that take into account the impact that a change in neighborhood conditions may have on the behavior of youth who move to new residences during the study period.  Our results show that concentrated disadvantage is indirectly associated with youth reoffending primarily through its association with exposure to deviant peers.  Taking into account youth mobility during the study period produced an additional indirect pathway by which concentrated disadvantage is associated with goal blockage (i.e., the gap between belief in conventional goals and perceived potential to reach those goals), which was then associated with exposure to deviant peers and indirectly, reoffending behavior.  We conclude that the neighborhood effects literature offers a promising framework for continued research on understanding the successful transition to adulthood by serious youthful offenders.

This article draws on recent studies to argue that researchers need to be attentive to the limits of the neighborhood effect as conventionally understood. It highlights the complexities of contextual influences and the challenges in accurately representing and measuring individual exposures to those influences. Specifically, it
discusses the idiosyncratic and multidimensional nature of contextual effects, the temporal complexities of contextual influences, the frame dependence of exposure measures, selective mobility bias, and publication bias in neighborhood effects research. It also discusses how contextual uncertainties could be mitigated in future research (e.g., through collecting and using high-resolution space–time data and moving toward frame-independent exposure measures with results that are not affected by how data are organized with respect to space and time).

We provide an example of how race-and place-based legacies of disinvestment initiated by New Deal Era redlining regimes under the auspices of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) were followed by decades of anti-gang over-policing tactics at the scale of the neighbourhood. We show how HOLC-mediated and mapped redlining has sustained community disinvestment and stigmatisation wrought by unjust and racist social policy seen to this day in contemporary geographies of gang abatement in the form of mapped gang injunction 'safety zones'. As we illustrate with the use of two case studies from Los Angeles-in South-Central LA and LA's San Fernando Valley-it is overwhelmingly redlined neighbourhoods that have remained marginalised, becoming civilly enjoined 'gang' neighbourhoods faced with oppressive anti-gang policing tactics over the past few decades.

This article examines whether heart rate stress reactivity interacts with neighborhood disadvantage to predict antisocial behavior. Antisocial behavior was assessed in a community sample of 445 males and females (M age = 11.92 years), using respondent and parent measures of antisocial behavior. Heart rate stress reactivity interacted with neighborhood disadvantage to predict parent-reported antisocial behavior. Specifically, the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and antisocial behavior was stronger among children with lower heart rate reactivity. This study is the first to find that heart rate stress reactivity interacts with the neighborhood environment to predict antisocial behavior. Findings demonstrate the importance of examining biological factors in conjunction with the broader environmental context to understand the development of antisocial behavior.

Cities are increasingly organised according to socio-spatial divisions in which groups with similar characteristics live in the same areas. This social polarisation is associated with differences in living conditions, health, morbidity and mortality. Traditionally, 'areas of disadvantage' have also been associated with increased risk of harmful substance use. However, some recent studies suggest that 'areas of affluence' may socialise adolescents into high levels of alcohol consumption. Using a combination of city district-level socioeconomic data and surveys of adolescents, we investigated patterns of substance use in different city districts of Oslo, Norway, with the aim to shed more light on these conflicting previous findings. We found that adolescents in the affluent parts of Oslo West reported the highest levels of recreational smoking, snus use and alcohol use. Those in the poorer Oslo Central East reported the highest levels of daily smoking, alcohol problems and cannabis use. After controlling for individual-and family-based risk factors, significant area differences remained, except with regard to alcohol problems and cannabis use. We conclude that adolescents living in affluent areas report the highest use of several psychoactive substances, but in a manner that is usually compatible with a rather health-oriented lifestyle. By contrast, those from socioeconomically disadvantaged districts near the city centre use substances in a manner that may have greater potential for social marginalisation, morbidity and mortality.

Objectives: To examine the extent to which adults' and youths' perceptions of collective efficacy align, the shared and unique correlates of adults' and youths' perceptions, and the effects of adults' and youths' perceptions on youths' violence.

Method: Descriptive analysis, hierarchical linear modeling, and spatial analysis analyze 1,636 youths from the 2008 Boston Youth Survey and 1,677 adults distributed across 85 neighborhoods from the 2008 Boston Neighborhood Study.

Results: Descriptive analysis indicates that Boston adults' and youths' perceptions are largely divergent. Spatial analysis indicates that there is not clustering of either adults' or youths' perceptions across Boston neighborhoods. Multilevel models indicate that adults’ and youths’ perceptions exhibit divergent etiology: Adults’ perceptions
align closely with neighborhood collective efficacy and with their own
neighborhood perceptions, while youths’ perceptions are largely a function
of individual differences (race and age) and socio-behavioral factors (social
support and educational expectations). Youths’ perceptions of collective
efficacy, rather than aggregated adults’ perceptions of collective efficacy, are
inversely associated with youths’ violence.

Conclusions: Adults’ and youths’ perceptions of collective efficacy represent distinct constructs. Research should focus on the divergent processes through which adults’ and youths’ perceptions are generated and the differential effects of adults’ and youths’ perceptions on youths’ behaviors.

This study contributes to the limited knowledge on the association between community income inequality and adolescent emotional problems, and explores whether these associations are contingent on national income inequality and personal deprivation. We obtained multilevel data from 10,223 adolescents (aged 15–16 years) nested within 82 communities in Iceland, at two time points: (a) in 2006 when income inequality was high and (b) in 2014 when income inequality had decreased. The associations are contingent on time period. Community income inequality was related to (a) an increase in anxiety in 2006 (b = 0.337, p ≤ 0.05), but not in 2014, and (b) a decrease in depression in 2014 (−0.958, p ≤ 0.05), but not in 2006. In 2006, community income inequality was more harmful to adolescents in deprived households. The results support the notion that the detrimental link between income inequality and adolescents' emotional problems may be shaped by the level of income inequality in the larger societal context.

A growing body of research highlights the collateral consequences of mass incarceration, including stop-and-frisk policing tactics. Living in a neighborhood with aggressive policing may affect one’s mental health, especially for men who are the primary targets of police stops. We examine whether there is an association between psychological distress and neighborhood-level aggressive policing (i.e., frisking and use of force by police) and whether that association varies by gender. The 2009-2011 New York City (NYC) Stop, Question, and Frisk Database is aggregated to the neighborhood-level (N=34) and merged with individual data from the 2012 NYC Community Health Survey (N= 8,066) via the United Hospital Fund neighborhood of respondents’ residence. Weighted multilevel generalized linear models are used to assess main and gendered associations of neighborhood exposures to aggressive police stops on psychological distress (Kessler-6 items). While the neighborhood stop rate exhibits inconsistent associations with psychological distress, neighborhood-level frisk and use of force proportions are linked to higher levels of non-specific psychological distress among men, but not women. Specifically, men exhibit more non-specific psychological distress and more severe feelings of nervousness, effort, and worthlessness in aggressively surveilled neighborhoods than do women. Male residents are affected by the escalation of stop-and-frisk policing in a neighborhood. Living in a context of aggressive policing is an important risk factor for men's mental health.

This study examines the neighborhood activity spaces (NAS) of 9- to 13-year-old children (n = 143) from seven schools in London, Canada. Data from Global Positioning System (GPS) loggers worn for 7 days were used to isolate and test measures for children’s pedestrian-based neighborhood activity: the maximum distance traveled from home and relative time spent in neighborhood settings. Descriptive and linear regression analyses examined the influence of individual, perceptual, and environmental factors on neighborhood use and travel. Participants spent a large portion of their out-of-school time (75%) in their NAS. Although traveling far from home on occasion, 94.5% of children’s time on average was spent within a short distance of home; participants spent little of their free time in broader neighborhood settings. School travel mode and independent mobility were among the strongest predictors of both distance traveled and time spent close to home. Perceptions of neighborhood safety, neighborhood type, and nearby land uses also influenced local activity.

The neighborhood effect averaging problem (NEAP) can be a serious methodological problem that leads to erroneous assessments when studying mobility-dependent exposures (e.g., air or noise pollution) because people’s daily mobility could amplify or attenuate the exposures they experienced in their residential neighborhoods. Specifically, the NEAP suggests that individuals’ mobility-based exposures tend toward the mean level of the participants or population of a study area when compared to their residence-based exposures. This research provides an in-depth examination of the NEAP and how the NEAP is associated with people’s daily mobility through an assessment of individual exposures to ground-level ozone using the activity-travel diary data of 2,737 individuals collected in the Los Angeles metropolitan statistical area. The results obtained with exploratory analysis (e.g., a scatterplot and histograms) and spatial regression models indicate that the NEAP exists when assessing individual exposures to ozone in the study area. Further, high-income, employed, younger, and male participants (when compared to low-income, nonworking, older, and female participants) are associated with higher levels of neighborhood effect averaging because of their higher levels of daily mobility. Finally, three-dimensional interactive geovisualizations of the space-time paths and hourly ozone exposures of seventy-one selected participants who live in the same neighborhood corroborate the findings obtained from the spatial regression analysis.

The task of studying the impact of social class on physical and mental health involves, among other things, the use of a conceptual toolbox that defines what social class is, establishes how to measure it, and sets criteria that help distinguish it from closely related concepts. One field that has recently witnessed a wealth of theoretical and conceptual research on social class is psychology, but geographers' and sociologists' attitude of diffidence toward this " positivistic " discipline has prevented them from taking advantage of this body of scholarship. This paper aims to highlight some of the most important developments in the psychological study of social class and social mobility that speak to the long-standing concerns of health geographers and sociologists with how social position, perceptions, social comparisons, and class-based identities impact health and well-being.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.11.037

Although well-theorized causal explanations exist at the person level, scholars of environmental behavior have long neglected the social nature of environmental activism. Using a unique data set of individuals nested within local communities along the Han River, South Korea, we propose a novel empirical model for analyzing the contextual effect of social capital on different sets of self-reported environmental behaviors. Our findings, based on multilevel structural equation modeling, indicate that the community-level construct of social capital is a significant predictor of spatial variations in both private and public environmental behaviors, whereas the person-level construct of community ties has predictive power for private environmental behavior. Understanding these multilayered paths in which social capital relates to pro-environmental behaviors provides a crucial balance to previous single-level findings.

This paper uses spatial data of cases of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) to examine neighborhood-level influences on small-area variations in IPVAW risk in a police district of the city of Valencia (Spain). To analyze area variations in IPVAW risk and its association with neighborhood-level explanatory variables we use a Bayesian spatial random-effects modeling approach, as well as disease mapping methods to represent risk probabilities in each area. Analyses show that IPVAW cases are more likely in areas of high immigrant concentration, high public disorder and crime, and high physical disorder. Results also show a spatial component indicating remaining variability attributable to spatially structured random effects. Bayesian spatial modeling offers a new perspective to identify IPVAW high and low risk areas, and provides a new avenue for the design of better-informed prevention and intervention strategies

ABSTRACT: Do place and race matter in mortgage loan applications? This article presents evidence from mortgage markets in the Dutch cities of Arnhem, The Hague, and Rotterdam, suggesting that place, and to a lesser extent also race, do matter. In general, race and place are not factors of direct exclusion, but (1) zip codes are included in credit scoring systems, and (2) both place and race are significant factors in the assessments by loan officers because applicants who do not meet all formal criteria are more often accepted (“overrides”) for indigenous Dutch and low-risk neighborhoods than for ethnic minorities and high-risk neighborhoods. In addition, a “national mortgage guarantee” is compulsory for loan applications in high-risk neighborhoods and thereby used as a substitute for redlining, comparable to the compulsoriness of private mortgage insurance in the United States. Some lenders also engage in direct redlining by rejecting low-risk “national mortgage guarantee” loans in high-risk neighborhoods, a practice potentially explained by transaction cost economizing. Since the high-risk neighborhoods in all three cities accommodate relatively large shares of ethnic minority groups, they are hit twice: through place-based and through race-based exclusion. In other words, place-based disparate treatment results in race-based disparate impact. The neighborhood does matter; place-based exclusion in the mortgage market has a neighborhood effect.

We conducted a small-area ecological longitudinal study to analyze neighborhood contextual influences on the spatio-temporal variations in intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) risk in a southern European city over an eight-year period. We used geocoded data of IPVAW cases with associated protection orders (n = 5867) in the city of Valencia, Spain (2011-2018). The city's 552 census block groups were used as the neighborhood units. Neighborhood-level covariates were: income, education, immigrant concentration, residential instability, alcohol outlet density, and criminality. We used a Bayesian autoregressive approach to spatio-temporal disease mapping. Neighborhoods with low levels of income and education and high levels of residential mobility and criminality had higher relative risk of IPVAW. Spatial patterns of high risk of IPVAW persisted over time during the eight-year period analyzed. Areas of stable low risk and with increasing or decreasing risk were also identified. Our findings link neighborhood disadvantage to the existence and persistence over time of spatial inequalities in IPVAW risk, showing that high risk of IPVAW can become chronic in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Our analytic approach provides specific risk estimates at the small-area level that are informative for intervention purposes, and can be useful to assess the effectiveness of prevention efforts in reducing IPVAW.

The paper analyses how the neighbourhood of Via Padova in Milan, Italy, has been represented and problematised by the media and the last two municipal administrations over the last decade. Since the late 1990s, Via Padova has undergone a significant socio-demographic transformation, one which has eventually characterised the area as one of the most multi-ethnic and diverse districts in the whole city. However, this transformation process and the upcoming new framework for the neighbourhood have been explained and approached in very different (and contested) ways. The aim of this paper is to compare the different narratives provided by both the media and also governmental institutions during the formerly right wing and current left wing administrations, and the implications of this, both in the shaping of a collective image of the area and in the development of local policies.

Background: Numerous studies have examined the association between safety and primary school-aged children's forms of active mobility. However, variations in studies' measurement methods and the elements addressed have contributed to inconsistencies in research outcomes, which may be forming a barrier to advancing researchers' knowledge about this field. To assess where current research stands, we have synthesised the methodological measures in studies that examined the effects of neighbourhood safety exposure (perceived and measured) on children's outdoor active mobility behaviour and used this analysis to propose future research directions. Method: A systematic search of the literature in six electronic databases was conducted using pre-defined eligibility criteria and was concluded in July 2020. Two reviewers screened the literature abstracts to determine the studies' inclusion, and two reviewers independently conducted a methodological quality assessment to rate the included studies. Results: Twenty-five peer-reviewed studies met the inclusion criteria. Active mobility behaviour and health characteristics were measured objectively in 12 out of the 25 studies and were reported in another 13 studies. Twenty-one studies overlooked spatiotemporal dimensions in their analyses and outputs. Delineations of children's neighbourhoods varied within 10 studies' objective measures, and the 15 studies that opted for subjective measures. Safety perceptions obtained in 22 studies were mostly static and primarily collected via parents, and dissimilarities in actual safety measurement methods were present in 6 studies. The identified schematic constraints in studies' measurement methods assisted in outlining a three-dimensional relationship between 'what' (determinants), 'where' (spatial) and 'when' (time) within a methodological conceptual framework. Conclusions: The absence of standardised measurement methods among relevant studies may have led to the current diversity in findings regarding active mobility, spatial (locality) and temporal (time) characteristics, the neighbourhood, and the representation of safety. Ignorance of the existing gaps and heterogeneity in measures may impact the reliability of evidence and poses a limitation when synthesising findings, which could result in serious biases for policymakers. Given the increasing interest in children's health studies, we suggested alternatives in the design and method of measures that may guide future evidence-based research for policymakers who aim to improve children's active mobility and safety.

Using multilevel modeling on a sample of 2472 families in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, this study explored the simultaneous role of neighborhood collective efficacy and maternal spanking on externalizing and internalizing problems in early childhood. Mediation analyses tested whether maternal spanking mediates the effect of neighborhood collective efficacy on behavior problems. Results indicated the direct influences of neighborhood collective efficacy and maternal spanking on externalizing and internalizing behavior problems, even after controlling for earlier behavior problem scores and a comprehensive set of child, family, and neighborhood level covariates. The indirect associations between neighborhood collective efficacy and behavior problems through maternal spanking were not significant, after considering the covariates. These findings demonstrate the importance of a multilevel framework that concurrently promotes positive neighborhood and parenting processes for desirable child outcomes.

Has the spatial concentration of illegal residence in urban environments become a relevant determinant of objective and subjective neighborhood safety? Using quantitative data from various sources on four large metropolitan areas in The Netherlands, this explorative study shows that the elevated levels of fear of crime and violence reported by residents in neighborhoods where illegal residence is spatially concentrated cannot be attributed to the presence of illegal migrants. At the same time, there is a modest positive correlation between the rate of illegal residence and covert property crimes in particular. Qualitative fieldwork in two neighborhoods helps explain why the spatial concentration of illegal residence appears to have different effects for different aspects of neighborhood safety, and why the negative effects tend to be limited.

" COIN, " the counter-terrorism doctrine the U.S. used during the Iraq War, was in criminological terms overly reliant on militarized "incapacitationist " strategies. Based on a competing " societal reactions " or community-level labeling theory, we argue that COIN failed to anticipate but predictably produced state-based " legal cynicism " in Arab Sunni communities—increasing rather than decreasing politically defiant terrorist crimes. We test our hypotheses with nationally representative surveys and data on terrorist attacks collected before, during, and immediately after the 2007 Surge in U.S. troops. The Surge increased perceptions of unnecessary U.S.-led violence against Arab Sunni non-combatants, provoking cynical beliefs in Arab Sunni communities, creating local contexts in which terrorist attacks increased, and foreshadowing later advances by the Islamic State. Our findings show that oversimplified, incapacitation-oriented control tactics—in domestic policing, in COIN, or in the traditional warfare strategies that are replacing COIN—are likely to contribute to rather than reduce cycles of violence.

Digital inequality, or unequal access to the Internet and technologies that connect to it, has preoccupied communication scholars since the Internet's introduction into popular culture. The relationships between digital and broader social inequalities suggest that meaningful digital connectivity—that is, having the technical skills necessary to engage technology and mobilize information resources to address everyday needs—can empower socially disen-franchised individuals, families, and communities to address challenges related to those disparities. In this essay, we overview the arc of communication research on technology engagement and its consequences. On this foundation, we argue why multilevel research that accounts for individual-, family-, and community-level influences on meaningful digital connectivity is the best path forward for research on digital inequality.

USA is experiencing a paradigm shift in public housing policy: while policies used to place people who qualified for housing assistance into spatially concentrated housing complexes, they now seek to geographically disperse them, often to voucher-subsidized rental units in the private market. Programs that relocate residents from public housing complexes tend to move them to neighborhoods that are less impoverished and less violent. To date, studies have reached conflicting findings about the relationship between public housing relocations and depression among adult relocaters. The present longitudinal multilevel analysis tests the hypothesis that pre-/postrelocation improvements in local economic conditions, social disorder, and perceived community violence are associated with declines in depressive symptoms in a cohort of African-American adults; active substance misusers were oversampled. We tested this hypothesis in a cohort of 172 adults who were living in one of seven public housing complexes scheduled for relocation and demolition in Atlanta, GA; by design, 20 % were dependent on substances and 50 % misused substances but were not dependent. Baseline data captured prerelocation characteristics of participants; of the seven census tracts where they lived, three waves of postrelocation data were gathered approximately every 9 months thereafter. Surveys were administered at each wave to assess depressive symptoms measured using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), perceived community violence, and other individual-level covariates. Participants' home addresses were geocoded to census tracts at each wave, and administrative data sources were used to characterize tract-level economic disadvantage and social disorder. Hypotheses were tested using multilevel models. Between waves 1 and 2, participants experienced significant improvements in reported depressive symptoms and perceived community violence and in tract-level economic disadvantage and social disorder; these reductions were sustained across waves 2–4. A 1 standard deviation improvement in economic conditions was associated with a 1-unit reduction in CES-D scores; the magnitude of this relationship did not vary by baseline substance misuse or gender. Reduced perceived community violence also predicted lower CES-D scores. Our objective measure of social disorder was unrelated to depressive symptoms. We found that relocaters who experienced greater pre-/postrelocation improvements in economic conditions or in perceived community violence experienced fewer depressive symptoms. Combined with past research, these findings suggest that relocation initiatives should focus on the quality of the places to which relocaters move; future research should also identify pathways linking pre-/postrelocation changes in place characteristics to changes in mental health.

Previous research suggests police surveillance practices confer health risks to community members. This study examines whether the public health burden of excessive or ethnoracially inequitable police use of force are amplified or buffered by ethnoracial composition. Multilevel models are used to assess data from the 2009–2012 New York City Community Health Survey merged at the United Hospital Fund level with data from the 2009–2012 New York City Stop, Question, and Frisk Database. The illness associations of ethnoracial composition are amplified by the areal density of police use of force but buffered by the disproportionate police use of force against minorities. Specifically, living in minority communities with a high concentration of use of force by police against pedestrians is associated with an increased risk of diabetes and obesity. However, living in areas with a heavy presence of whites where there are large racial differences in police use of force is associated with an increased risk of poor/fair self‐rated health, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity. The article concludes by considering the implications of the findings for better understanding the racialized nature of police violence and the consequences of place in distributing surveillance stress and structuring legal cynicism.

This article examines the narratives offered by those displaced through the gentrification of neighbourhoods in Melbourne and Sydney. Extensive qualitative interview data generated from encounters with self-identified displacees in these cities is used here to examine their responses to changes in and after they moved from their originating neighbourhoods and the impacts these changes had on them. This data reveals that despite displacement commonly being defined in terms of physical movement, in many cases, participants became dislocated and isolated by the physical and social changes that took place while still residing in neighbourhoods as they changed. The article traces these twin modes of displacement – both as a series of impacts generated by direct market dislocation but also as feelings of loss connected with a home that might be imminently lost and the cherished place around it.
These narratives reveal how private renters respond to a symbolic violence that they locate in a changing built environment and a shifting social physiognomy that impinges and threatens the viability of their tenure of these places. The article locates these resentments and displacements within a sociopolitical context that celebrates ownership and investment in the very homes and places that are now lost to them.

The tremendous negative impact of conduct problems
to the individual and society has provided the impetus for
identifying risk factors, particularly in early childhood.
Exposure to neighborhood deprivation in early childhood is
a robust predictor of conduct problems in middle childhood.
Efforts to identify and test mediating mechanisms by
which neighborhood deprivation confers increased risk
for behavioral problems have predominantly focused on
peer relationships and community-level social processes.
Less attention has been dedicated to potential cognitive
mediators of this relationship, such as aggressive response
generation, which refers to the tendency to generate aggressive
solutions to ambiguous social stimuli with negative outcomes.
In this study, we examined aggressive response
generation, a salient component of social information processing,
as a mediating process linking neighborhood deprivation
to later conduct problems at age 10.5. Participants
(N = 731; 50.5 % male) were drawn from a multisite
randomized prevention trial that includes an ethnically diverse
and low-income sample of male and female children and their
primary caregivers followed prospectively from toddlerhood
to middle childhood. Results indicated that aggressive response
generation partially mediated the relationship between
neighborhood deprivation and parent- and teacher-report of
conduct problems, but not youth-report. Results suggest that
the detrimental effects of neighborhood deprivation on
youth adjustment may occur by altering the manner in
which children process social information.