Communities of Opportunity: A Framework to Produce Greater Racial, Social and Regional Equity

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Communities of OpportunityA Framework to
Produce Greater Racial, Social and Regional Equity

• October 14th 2006
• 13th Annual Critical Geography Conference
• Jason Reece, AICP
• Senior Research Associate
• Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and
  Ethnicity
• The Ohio State University
• http//www.kirwaninstitute.org/
• Reece.35_at_osu.edu

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Opportunity MattersPlace, Space and Life Outcomes
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Place and Life Outcomes

• Where you live is more important than what you
  live in
• Housing, in particular its location, is the
  primary mechanism for accessing opportunity in
  our society
• Housing location determines the quality of
  schools children attend, the quality of public
  services, access to employment and
  transportation, health risks, access to health
  care and public safety
• For those living in high poverty neighborhoods
  these factors can significantly inhibit life
  outcomes

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Housing and Opportunity

• Housing is Critical in Determining Access to
  Opportunity

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The Web of Opportunity

• Opportunities in our society are geographically
  distributed and often clustered throughout
  metropolitan areas
• This creates winner and loser communities or
  high and low opportunity communities
• Your location within this web of opportunity
  plays a decisive role in your life potential and
  outcomes
• Individual characteristics still matter but so
  does environment
• Environment can impact individual decision making

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Conditions in High and Low Opportunity Areas
Economic Opportunities
High Opportunity
Low Opportunity
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Children and Schools
High Opportunity
Low Opportunity
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Housing
High Opportunity
Low Opportunity
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The Impact of Place Qualitative Research from
the MTO Program

• Reflections on living in a low opportunity
  community
• "It was like being in a war zone. It was really
  bad...A lot of drug dealings. Shoot-outs. Girls
  getting beat up by their boyfriends. Young
  girlsEverybody has such low self-esteem and no
  regard for each other. Nobody looked out for
  each other. It was horrible.
• Impact of moving to opportunity
• "I just got promoted to a higher
  position...Moving has done wonderful things for
  me and my family. It has given me an outlook on
  things that I'm surrounded by. Better
  neighborhood, better schools for my kids, a
  better job, great things for me."
• "It gave me a better outlook on life, that there
  is a life outside of that housing."

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Racial Segregation, Opportunity Segregation and
Racial Disparities

• Housing policies, discrimination, land use policy
  and patterns of regional investment and
  disinvestment converge to produce continued
  racial segregation in our society
• Often this racial segregation coexists with
  segregation into high poverty neighborhoods and
  separation from many of the opportunities in our
  metropolitan regions
• Producing a racial isolation in neighborhoods
  that are lacking the essential opportunities to
  advance in our society (fueling racial
  disparities)

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Spatial Racism Results in Isolation from
Opportunity

The face of racism looks different today than it
did thirty years ago. Overt racism is easily
condemned, but the sin is often with us in more
subtle formsof spatial racismSpatial racism
refers to patterns of metropolitan development in
which some affluent whites create racially and
economically segregated suburbs or gentrified
areas of cities, leaving the poor -- mainly
African Americans, Hispanics and some newly
arrived immigrants -- isolated in deteriorating
areas of the cities and older suburbs.
Francis Cardinal George, OMI Archbishop of Chicago
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The Cumulative Impacts of Racial and Opportunity
Segregation
Segregation impacts a number of life-opportunities
Impacts on Health
School Segregation
Impacts on Educational Achievement
Exposure to crime arrest
Transportation limitations and other inequitable
public services
Job segregation
Neighborhood Segregation
Racial stigma, other psychological impacts
Impacts on community power and individual assets
Adapted from figure by Barbara Reskin at
http//faculty.washington.edu/reskin/
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Opportunity BenefitsEveryone

• While African American and Latino city residents
  are most often burdened, these groups are not the
  only ones negatively impacted by our opportunity
  segregation
• Low income Whites and Whites living in the city
  and inner suburbs are harmed as well
• High concentrations of poverty and segregated
  neighborhoods can also have deleterious effects
  on the well-being and health of the entire
  metropolitan region

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Communities of Opportunity
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The Communities of Opportunity Approach

• The communities of opportunity model was
  proposed by Kirwan Institute Executive Director
  john powell
• The model is based an extensive body of research
  and literature related to concentrated poverty,
  regional equity, metropolitan dynamics, spatial
  racism, housing mobility, segregation, etc.

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The Communities of Opportunity Approach

• The fundamental premise behind this framework is
  that policy should support neighborhoods of
  opportunity and affirmatively connect all
  residents to opportunity in metropolitan areas
• As a result, marginalized residents will have
  access to the resources and opportunities they
  need to succeed and the entire region will
  realize social, environmental and economic
  improvements that will prove beneficial to all
  residents
• The model is based on decades of research and
  policy experience, which support the concept that
  opportunity matters, and systematically denying
  opportunities from certain populations or
  communities drives sprawl and harms everyone

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Creating Communities of Opportunity

• What does this model support?
• Policies that address the lack of opportunities
  in depressed neighborhoods and communities, such
  as high quality education, sustainable
  employment, and investment in infrastructure and
  housing
• Policies that work to address problems of
  concentrated poverty and to affirmatively connect
  low income residents to growing communities of
  opportunity with growing jobs and high quality
  schools
• Economic development policies that help
  marginalized populations build assets, increase
  the skills of the work force, and improve the
  educational system
• Growth management policies that protect the
  integrity of communities on the rural/urban
  fringe or in gentrifying areas, while assuring
  that affordable housing opportunities are
  included in high-growth areas

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KI Initiatives Moving This Model Forward

• This model informs much of our work at the
  Institute, actively informing our policy advocacy
  to produce societal change
• The following presentations will highlight the
  application of this work
• Housing application (Thompson v. HUD in
  Baltimore)
• Education application (Economic Segregation in
  Ohio)
• Economic Development application (Cleveland)

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Questions or Comments? For More Information
Visit Us On-Linewww.KirwanInstitute.org
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Sample of Research on the Impacts of Place and
Opportunity

• Richard Thompson Ford, The Boundaries of Race
  Political Geography in Legal Analysis, 107
  Harvard Law Review 8 Kevin Fox Gotham, "Urban
  Space, Restrictive Covenants and the Origins of
  Racial Residential Segregation in a U.S. City,
  1900-1950," International Journal of Urban and
  Regional Research 24.3. 2000. Pages 616-33 and
  Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier The
  Suburbanization of the United States. New York.
  Oxford University Press. 1985. and Douglas S.
  Massey and Nancy A. Denton., American Apartheid
  Segregation and the Making of the Underclass.
  Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1993.
  john a. powell and Kathleen M. Graham. "Urban
  Fragmentation as a Barrier to Equal Opportunity,"
  in Rights at Risk Equality in an Age of
  Terrorism, eds. D. M. Piché, W. L. Taylor and R.
  A. Reed. Washington D.C. Citizens' Commission on
  Civil Rights. 2002. and David Rusk, Inside
  Game/Outside Game Winning Strategies for Saving
  Urban America. Washington D.C. Brookings
  Institution. 1999. and Michael H. Schill and
  Susan M. Wachter, The Spatial Bias of Federal
  Housing Law and Policy Concentrated Poverty in
  Urban America, 143 University of Pennsylvania
  Law Review 1285. 1995.
• For examples of education impacts see Gary
  Orfield and Susan Eaton, Dismantling
  Desegregation The Quiet Reversal of Brown v.
  Board of Education. New York New Press. 1996
  and Quality Counts 98 The Urban Challenge,
  Education Week, January 8, 1998, p. 6. and
  Stephanie Stullich, Brenda Donly, and Simeon
  Stolzberg, Targeting Schools Study of Title I
  Allocations Within School Districts Department
  of Education. 1999. and Mary M. Kennedy, Richard
  K. Jung, and M. E. Orland, Poverty, Achievement,
  and the Distribution of Compensatory Education
  Services An Interim Report from the National
  Assessment of Chapter 1. Washington, D.C. U.S.
  Department of Education. 1986. and Stephen
  Schellenberg, Concentration of Poverty and
  Ongoing Need for Title I, in Gary Orfield and
  Elizabeth DeBray, eds., Hard Work for Good
  Schools Facts Not Fads in Title I Reform.
  Cambridge, MA. The Civil Rights Project. Harvard
  University. 1999 and Orfield, G., Lee, C.
  (2004, January). Brown at 50 Kings dream or
  Plessys nightmare? Cambridge, MA The Civil
  Rights Project. Harvard University. January 2004.
  Available on-line at http//www.civilrightsprojec
  t.harvard.edu/research/reseg04/brown50.pdf
• For examples of economic and employment impacts
  see Richard Price and Edwin S. Mills, Race and
  Residence in Earnings Determination, J. Urb.
  Econ. 17 (1985) 1-18 Harry J. Holtzer, The
  Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis What has the
  Evidence Shown? Urb. Studies 28 (1991) 105
  J.F. Kain, The Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis
  Three Decades Later, 3.2 Housing Poly Deb. 3.2
  (1992) 371 M. Stoll., Job Sprawl And The
  Spatial Mismatch Between Blacks And Jobs (2005).
  The Brookings Institute. Available at
  http//www.brookings.edu/dybdocroot/metro/pubs/200
  50214_jobsprawl.pdf Harry Holzer, Keith
  Ihlanfeldt, and David Sjoquist, Work, Search,
  and Travel among White and Black Youth, Journal
  Of Urban Economics 35 (1994) 320-345 K.
  Ihlanfeldt D. Sjoquist, The Spatial Mismatch
  Hypothesis A Review of Recent Studies and Their
  Implications for Welfare Reform, Housing Policy
  Debate 9 (1998) 881 Chengri Ding and
  Gerrit-Jan Knaap, Property Values in Inner-City
  Neighborhoods The Effects of Homeownership,
  Housing Investment, and Economic Development,
  Housing Policy Debate 13.4 (2003) 701-727
  Karen Chapple, "Overcoming Mismatch Beyond
  Dispersal, Mobility, and Development Strategies,"
  Journal of the American Planning Association 72.3
  (2006) 322-36.
• For examples of health, environmental justice and
  transportation impacts see David R. Williams and
  Chiquita Collins, Racial Residential
  Segregation A Fundamental Cause of Racial
  Disparities in Health, 116 Public Health Reports
  (Sept/Oct 2001) 404, 405 Benjamin J. Apelberg,
  Timothy J. Buckley and Ronald H. White,
  Socioeconomic and Racial Disparities in Cancer
  Risk from Air Toxics in Maryland, Environmental
  Health Perspectives 113 (June 2005) Christopher
  R. Browning and Kathleen A. Cagney, Moving
  Beyond Poverty Neighborhood Structure, Social
  Processes and Health, Journal Of Health And
  Social Behavior 44 (2003) 552-571 Helen
  Epstein, Enough To Make You Sick?, The New York
  Times Magazine (10/12/03) I.H. Yen and G.A.
  Kaplan, Neighborhood social environment and risk
  of death Multilevel evidence from the Alameda
  County Study, American Journal of Epidemiology
  149.10 (1999) 898-907 Robert D. Bullard,
  Addressing Urban Transportation Equity in the
  United States, 31 Fordham Urban Law Journal 31
  (2004) 1183 Thomas W. Sanchez et. al., Moving
  To Equity Addressing Inequitable Effects Of
  Transportation Policies On Minorities, The Civil
  Rights Project and Center for Community Change,
  Harvard University (June 2003). Available at
  http//www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research
  /transportation/trans_paper03.phpfullreport.
• For crime and violence reports see Robert J.
  Sampson, Stephen W. Raudenbush, and Felton Earls,
  Neighborhoods and Violent Crime A Multi-Level
  Study of Collective Efficacy, Science 277
  (1997) 918-24 and Youth And Violence A Report
  Of The Surgeon General (January 2001). Available
  on-line at http//www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/y
  outhviolence/youvioreport.htm.