Abstract
Black middle-class neighborhoods have higher internal poverty rates and are closer to high-poverty and high-crime areas than white middle-class neighborhoods, which presents particular challenges to neighborhood social organization. This study uses ethnographic data from a black middle-class neighborhood in Chicago to explore how residents manage this ecological context. I find that dense social networks fostered by residential stability facilitate the informal supervision of neighborhood youth and enhance the activities of formal organizations and institutions. Nevertheless, the incorporation of gang members and drug dealers into the networks of law-abiding kin and neighbors thwarts efforts to completely rid the neighborhood of its criminal element. The conflicting effects of dense networks challenge traditional social organization theory.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 747-774 |
| Number of pages | 28 |
| Journal | Social Forces |
| Volume | 76 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 1998 |
Funding
*This research was part of the Comparative Neighborhood Study conducted at the University of Chicago under the direction of William Julius Wilson and Richard P. Taub. Research support was provided by the Ford, MacArthur and Rockefeller Foundations. I would like to thank Reuben A.B. May, Robert Sampson, Jeffrey Morenoff, Christopher Jencks, Sudhir Venkatesh, Ray Reagans, the Comparative Neighborhood Study, and the anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier drafts of this article. Direct correspondence to Mary E. Pattillo, Poverty Research and Training Center, 540 E. Liberty, Suite 202, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, or e-mail to [email protected].
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- History
- Anthropology
- Sociology and Political Science
