Opportunities for Making Ends Meet and Upward Mobility: Differences in Organizational Deprivation Across Urban and Suburban Poor Neighborhoods^*

Abstract

Objectives. Given the recent rise of poverty in U.S. suburbs, this study asks: What poor neighborhoods are most disadvantageous, those in the city or those in the suburbs? Building on recent urban sociological work demonstrating the importance of neighborhood organizations for the poor, we are concerned with one aspect of disadvantage—the lack of availability of organizational resources oriented toward the poor. By breaking down organizations into those that promote mobility versus those that help individuals meet their daily subsistence needs, we seek to explore potential variations in the type of disadvantage that may exist.Methods. We test whether poor urban or suburban neighborhoods are more likely to be organizationally deprived by breaking down organizations into three types: hardship organizations, educational organizations, and employment organizations. We use data from the 2000 U.S. County Business Patterns and the 2000 U.S. Census and test neighborhood deprivation using logistic regression models.Results. We find that suburban poor neighborhoods are more likely to be organizationally deprived than are urban poor neighborhoods, especially with respect to organizations that promote upward mobility. Interesting racial and ethnic composition factors shape this more general finding.Conclusion. Our findings suggest that if a poor individual is to live in a poor neighborhood, with respect to access to organizational resources, he or she would be better off living in the central city. Suburban residence engenders isolation from organizations that will help meet one's daily needs and even more so from those offering opportunities for mobility.

Predictors of U.S. Food Insecurity Across Nonmetropolitan, Suburban, and Principal City Residence During the Great Recession

“…Similar to nonmetro areas, suburban social service agencies often have larger service areas than agencies in cities (Allard & Roth, 2010). Compared to principal cities, suburban areas are more likely to lack human service agencies including emergency food providers to assist low-income families (Murphy & Wallace, 2010). This is also true when comparing high-poverty suburban and principal city neighborhoods.…”

The influence of incarceration and Re-entry on the availability of health care organizations in Arkansas

“…First, our health care organizations data originates from the 2008 County Business Patterns (CBP) data. The CBP data is a count of every business or organization nationally that keeps a formal payroll (Murphy and Wallace, 2010; Small and McDermott, 2006) b . Each business is classified by the North American Classification System (NAICS); the NAICS codes designate business or organization type which enables differentiating between the three types of health services we investigate: all health care organizations, doctors’ offices, and mental health care organizations.…”

“…Zip codes are the neighborhood unit. The smallest spatial unit in the CBP data is zip code, and while zip code is an imperfect proxy for neighborhood, it allows us to approximate intra-county variation in access to resources and other important neighborhood economic forces (Murphy and Wallace, 2010; Small and McDermott, 2006). …”

“…Our study site, Arkansas, is mostly rural. Given that rural, suburban, urban areas vary in regard to access to care and other resources (Burton et al, 2013; Murphy and Wallace, 2010), we control for the percent of the population in the zip code that are in rural areas . Additionally, we control for the percentage of the neighborhood population who are over 65 years old given that older populations are associated with higher medical service needs (Auchincloss et al, 2001).…”

“…On the other hand, because neighborhoods with high levels of coercive mobility are also disadvantaged in other ways (Rose and Clear, 1998), these neighborhood are not likely to have a sufficient number of health care organizations. While coercive mobility may be a strong indicator of need, it is unlikely that these neighborhoods are able to attract or maintain health care organizations in a rural, suburban, or urban neighborhood (Burton et al, 2013; Murphy and Wallace, 2010; Small and McDermott, 2006; Wallace and Papachristos, 2014). These neighborhoods also have a difficult time attracting health care organizations health care organizations because local patrons are unlikely to be able to afford their services (Bane, 1991; Kirby and Kaneda, 2005).…”