During the past decade, a rapidly expanding body of empirical research has emerged that statistically links disadvantaged neighborhood environments with social and economic outcomes of low-income, minority children. Nonetheless, the mechanisms by which neighborhoods putatively affect children remain poorly understood. This article examines the perceptions of low-income parents regarding how their neighborhood might affect their children. We examine quantitative and qualitative data gathered from phone interviews with 246 parents who live in subsidized housing scattered across a wide variety of neighborhoods in Denver, Colorado. We supplement this information with data obtained through a series of focus group interviews with a subset of these parents. Our findings indicate that low-income parents perceive the following primary neighborhood mechanisms: (1) the degree (or lack) of social norms and collective efficacy (24%); (2) influence of children's peers (12%); (3) exposure to crime and violence (11%); and (4) the presence and quality of institutional resources (3%). Approximately one-third of all parents reported that their neighborhood had no impact at all on their children, citing that their children were either "too young" to be affected by these mechanisms or that parents had sufficient resources to buffer any deleterious effects of the neighborhood. Parents residing in high-poverty neighborhoods were much more likely to perceive a neighborhood effect, however. Binary and multinomial logistic regression analyses were employed to identify the extent to which an array of demographic characteristics and neighborhood type correlated with parents' perceptions. Latino parents were significantly less likely than other low-income parents to report a neighborhood impact mechanism. Relative to those who reported no particular neighborhood impact mechanism, those who identified: (1) safety issues were more likely to have a spouse or parent present, and have low self-esteem; (2) peer influences were more likely to have higher levels of education and live in a high-poverty but low-crime area.A rapidly expanding body of empirical research has emerged during the last decade assessing the degree to which neighborhood environments affect the social and economic outcomes of lowincome, minority families and their children (see reviews by Brooks

The present study, which was designed to improve understanding of the context, patterns, and meanings of violence against wives, uses a standpoint-based approach which incorporates a symbolic interactionist method and a feminist perspective to examine wife abuse in Mexican-descent families. Findings from the study indicate that wife abuse occurs in the complex context of economic hardship, changes in gender role expectations and performances, and husbands' attempt to maintain male dominance and control of the family. The control aspect of wife abuse was reflected in the patterns of violence used by husbands, the unequal power relationship between husbands and wives, and the differences between wives' and husbands' reactions to family conflicts. These findings suggest that efforts to stop wife abuse need to focus not only on increasing women's economic independence but also on eliminating culture-specific ideologies of male supremacy.

LA VIDA--the Southwest Detroit Partnership to Prevent Intimate Violence Against Latina Women--evolved in response to community concern about the problem of intimate partner violence (IPV) and the lack of culturally competent preventive and support services for Latino women and men in southwest Detroit. Since 1997, diverse organizations have mobilized as a community-academic partnership to ensure the availability, accessibility, and utilization of IPV services. This article describes and analyzes the evolution of LA VIDA within a community-based participatory research framework using a case study approach that draws on multiple data sources including group and individual interviews and field notes. The challenges and lessons learned in addressing a complex multifaceted problem such as IPV in an ethnic minority community are highlighted in an examination of the process of mobilizing diverse organizations, conducting community diagnosis and needs assessment activities, establishing goals and objectives within a social ecological framework, and integrating evaluation during the development phase.

This study tests the hypothesis that the acquisition of existing property by the public housing authority and its subsequent rehabilitation and occupancy by subsidized tenants significantly reduced the property values of surrounding single‐family homes in Denver during the 1990s. This assessment examined pre‐ and post‐occupancy sales, while controlling for the idiosyncratic neighborhood, local public service, and zoning characteristics of the areas in order to identify which sorts of neighborhoods, if any, experienced declining property values as a result of proximity to dispersed housing tenants. The analyses revealed that proximity to a subsidized housing site generally had an independent, positive effect on single‐family home sales prices. The most notable exception to this pattern occurred in neighborhoods more than 20 percent of whose residents were black. Proximity to dispersed public housing sites in these neighborhoods resulted in slower growth in home sales prices in an other‐wise booming housing market and suggest a threshold within “vulnerable” neighborhoods whereby any potential gains associated with rehabilitating existing units are offset by the increased concentration of poor residents. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

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