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If "badneighborhoods are truly bad for children and families,
especially the minority poor, can moving to better neighborhoods
lead them to better lives? Might these families escape poverty
altogether, beyond having a better quality of life to help them
cope with being poor? Federal policymakers and planners thought so,
on both counts, and in 1994, they launched Moving to Opportunity.
The $80 million social experiment enrolled nearly 5,000 very
low-income, mostly black and Hispanic families, many of them on
welfare, who were living in public housing in the inner-city
neighborhoods of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New
York. Yet five years after they had entered the program, many of
the families in the favored experimentalgroup had returned to high
poverty neighborhoods. Young women showed big drops in risky
behavior and big improvements in mental health, on average, while
young male movers did not. The males even showed signs of increased
delinquency if they had lived, at least for a time, in the low
poverty areas. Parents likewise showed major drops in anxiety and
depression-two of the crippling symptoms of being chronically poor
in high-risk ghettos-but not in employment or income. And many
movers appeared to be maintaining the same limited social
circles-mostly disadvantaged relatives and close friends-despite
living in more advantaged neighborhoods. The authors of this
important and engaging new book wanted to know why. Moving to
Opportunity tackles the great, unresolved question of how to
overcome persistent ghetto poverty. It mines a unique demonstration
program with a human voice, not just statistics and charts, rooted
in the lives of those who "signed upfor MTO. It shines a light on
the hopes, surprises, achievements and limitations of a major
social experiment-and does so at a time of tremendous economic,
social, and political change in our nation. As the authors make
clear, for all its ambition, MTO is a uniquely American experiment,
and this book brings home its lessons for policymakers and
advocates, scholars, students, journalists, and all who share a
deep concern for opportunity and inequality in our country.
If "badneighborhoods are truly bad for children and families,
especially the minority poor, can moving to better neighborhoods
lead them to better lives? Might these families escape poverty
altogether, beyond having a better quality of life to help them
cope with being poor? Federal policymakers and planners thought so,
on both counts, and in 1994, they launched Moving to Opportunity.
The $80 million social experiment enrolled nearly 5,000 very
low-income, mostly black and Hispanic families, many of them on
welfare, who were living in public housing in the inner-city
neighborhoods of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New
York. Yet five years after they had entered the program, many of
the families in the favored experimentalgroup had returned to high
poverty neighborhoods. Young women showed big drops in risky
behavior and big improvements in mental health, on average, while
young male movers did not. The males even showed signs of increased
delinquency if they had lived, at least for a time, in the low
poverty areas. Parents likewise showed major drops in anxiety and
depression-two of the crippling symptoms of being chronically poor
in high-risk ghettos-but not in employment or income. And many
movers appeared to be maintaining the same limited social
circles-mostly disadvantaged relatives and close friends-despite
living in more advantaged neighborhoods. The authors of this
important and engaging new book wanted to know why. Moving to
Opportunity tackles the great, unresolved question of how to
overcome persistent ghetto poverty. It mines a unique demonstration
program with a human voice, not just statistics and charts, rooted
in the lives of those who "signed upfor MTO. It shines a light on
the hopes, surprises, achievements and limitations of a major
social experiment-and does so at a time of tremendous economic,
social, and political change in our nation. As the authors make
clear, for all its ambition, MTO is a uniquely American experiment,
and this book brings home its lessons for policymakers and
advocates, scholars, students, journalists, and all who share a
deep concern for opportunity and inequality in our country.
"A popular version of history trumpets the United States as a
diverse ""nation of immigrants,"" welcome to all. The truth,
however, is that local communities have a long history of
ambivalence toward new arrivals and minorities. Persistent patterns
of segregation by race and income still exist in housing and
schools, along with a growing emphasis on rapid metropolitan
development (sprawl) that encourages upwardly mobile families to
abandon older communities and their problems. This dual pattern is
becoming increasingly important as America grows more diverse than
ever and economic inequality increases. Two recent trends compel
new attention to these issues. First, the geography of race and
class represents a crucial litmus test for the new
""regionalism""-the political movement to address the linked
fortunes of cities and suburbs. Second, housing has all but
disappeared as a major social policy issue over the past two
decades. This timely book shows how unequal housing choices and
sprawling development create an unequal geography of opportunity.
It emerges from a project sponsored by the Civil Rights Project at
Harvard University in collaboration with the Joint Center for
Housing Studies and the Brookings Institution. The
contributors-policy analysts, political observers, social
scientists, and urban planners-document key patterns, their
consequences, and how we can respond, taking a hard look at both
successes and failures of the past. Place still matters, perhaps
more than ever. High levels of segregation shape education and job
opportunity, crime and insecurity, and long-term economic
prospects. These problems cannot be addressed effectively if
society assumes that segregation will take care of itself.
Contributors include William Apgar (Harvard University), Judith
Bell (PolicyLink), Angela Glover Blackwell (PolicyLink), Allegra
Calder (Harvard), Karen Chapple (Cal-Berkeley), Camille Charles
(Penn), Mary Cunningham (Urban Institute), Casey Dawkins (Virginia
Tech), Stephanie DeLuca (Johns Hopkins), John Goering (CUNY),
Edward Goetz (U. of Minnesota), Bruce Katz (Brookings), Barbara
Lukermann (U. of Minnesota), Gerrit Knaap (U. of Maryland), Arthur
Nelson (Virginia Tech), Rolf Pendall (Cornell), Susan J. Popkin
(Urban Institute), James Rosenbaum (Northwestern), Stephen L. Ross
(U. of Connecticut), Mara Sidney (Rutgers), Phillip Tegeler
(Poverty and Race Research Action Council), Tammy Tuck
(Northwestern), Margery Austin Turner (Urban Institute), William
Julius Wilson (Harvard). "
As government faces more complex problems, and citizens expect
more, the way government delivers services and results is changing
rapidly. The traditional model of government agencies administering
hundreds of programs by themselves is giving way to one-stop
services and cross-agency results. This translation implies
collaboration--within agencies; among agencies; among levels of
governments; and among the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
The first part of this book describes what networks and
partnerships are. The second part presents case examples of how
collaborative approaches have actually worked in the public sector,
when they should be used, and what it takes to manage and
coordinate them.
As government faces more complex problems, and citizens expect
more, the way government delivers services and results is changing
rapidly. The traditional model of government agencies administering
hundreds of programs by themselves is giving way to one-stop
services and cross-agency results. This translation implies
collaborationOCowithin agencies; among agencies; among levels of
governments; and among the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
The first part of this book describes what networks and
partnerships are. The second part presents case examples of how
collaborative approaches have actually worked in the public sector,
when they should be used, and what it takes to manage and
coordinate them."
Case studies from around the world and theoretical discussion show
how the capacity to act collectively on local problems can be
developed, strengthening democracy while changing social and
economic outcomes. Complexity, division, mistrust, and "process
paralysis" can thwart leaders and others when they tackle local
challenges. In Democracy as Problem Solving, Xavier de Souza Briggs
shows how civic capacity-the capacity to create and sustain smart
collective action-can be developed and used. In an era of sharp
debate over the conditions under which democracy can develop while
broadening participation and building community, Briggs argues that
understanding and building civic capacity is crucial for
strengthening governance and changing the state of the world in the
process. More than managing a contest among interest groups or
spurring deliberation to reframe issues, democracy can be what the
public most desires: a recipe for significant progress on important
problems. Briggs examines efforts in six cities, in the United
States, Brazil, India, and South Africa, that face the millennial
challenges of rapid urban growth, economic restructuring, and
investing in the next generation. These challenges demand the
engagement of government, business, and nongovernmental sectors.
And the keys to progress include the ability to combine learning
and bargaining continuously, forge multiple forms of
accountability, and find ways to leverage the capacity of the
grassroots and what Briggs terms the "grasstops," regardless of who
initiates change or who participates over time. Civic capacity,
Briggs shows, can-and must-be developed even in places that lack
traditions of cooperative civic action.
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