What is a ‘good neighborhood’?

1. What is a ‘good neighborhood’? Lisa K. Bates Ellen M. Bassett Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning Portland State University

2. Overview • Policy and Planning Motivations • Conceptual literature • Poverty and neighborhood choice • Access and the geography of opportunity • Research design and method • Findings • Families with children • Single adults • Some implications and directions

3. Policy and Planning Motivations • Housing mobility for low-income families • Geography of opportunity • “Complete” or “20 Minute” neighborhoods

4. Conceptual: Poverty and neighborhood choice • Poverty affects evaluation and frames decisions • Lack of information • Cognitive map • Spatial bias in social networks • Comparisons are biased • Perceptions of availability • Anticipated discrimination

5. Conceptual: Poverty and neighborhood choice • When is a choice not a choice? “It is equally true that because of the legacy of segregation and discrimination, many families could never really ‘choose’ neighborhoods in the middle class suburbs because they have never seen one and have no way of understanding the potential cost-benefit tradeoffs. Instead they learn to accept the status quo, even though they know it poses risks, because it is ‘what they know’ and it’s possible… [When asked many said they wanted to stay but] others said they wanted to live in a far-flung White suburbs or move to states like California or Rhode Island (as one woman told me, “RI sounds as far away as you can get!”). When I asked whether the families had been to the White suburbs or RI, they almost always said no. How can one argue that they really prefer the right to stay when they have never realized any other experiences?” S. DeLuca in JUA

6. Conceptual: Poverty and neighborhood choice • Is this a benign paternalism or something more pernicious? • Adolph Reed “Well-intentioned, respectable scholars as they are, they live no less than anyone else within a political culture shaped largely by class experience and perception. And the poverty research industry…has been predicated for decades on the premise that poor people are defective, incapable of knowing their own best interests, that they are solely objects of social policy, never its subjects.”

7. Conceptual: Poverty and neighborhood choice • Is this a benign paternalism or something more pernicious? • Alford Young “a scholarly vision of [the poor] as morally corrupt (due to their presumed adherence to flawed normative and value systems)” • Policy stuck in a false dichotomy: “investments in motivational, incentive-driven, and sanctioning rationales” or cultural reorientation to avoid being “inevitably resigned to scaled-down aspirations.”

8. Access and the geography of opportunity • Access is a noun • Operationalize “good neighborhood” • Low poverty +/or low minority • Geography of Opportunity • 20 minute neighborhood • Aging in Place • Access is a verb • Social interactions? • Networked organizations broker resources

9. Research Design and Methods • Question: What is a good neighborhood? • Distinct from mobility question • Is there a ‘poverty culture’ construction • Geographic imaginary • Practical and symbolic meanings • What is access? • How is ‘opportunity’ articulated with respect to space/place?

10. Research Design and Methods • In depth interviews • Place-bound poor respondents • Subsidized units [project-based or CDC] • Families with children • 17 [5 live in low poverty neighborhoods] • Single adults • 16 [mostly in downtown]

11. Research Design and Methods • Portland is different from the literature • Predominantly white city • Geographies • Westside vs. eastside • Inner vs. outer • Low poverty neighborhoods • Policies • Transit • Schools transfer lottery

12. Findings: families with children • What is a ‘good neighborhood’? • 9 Social ties and people • 12 Safety [5 safety * people]

13. Findings: families with children • Neighborhood space and scale • Not related to knowledge of Portland • Many focus on complex • ‘bad’ hood: good complex, bad surroundings • ‘good’ hood: ties in complex, isolation from broader neighborhood

14. Findings: families with children • Neighborhood space and scale • 9 Families in “Bienvenidos CDC” • Complex is positive • People know each other, and the children like each other and get along well • When there’s need, everyone helps, and there’s a fraternity between them. • The good thing is that everything is very…the Hispanics, we all know about each other.

15. Findings: families with children • Neighborhood space and scale • 9 Families in “Bienvenidos CDC” • Upon prompting- Neighborhood is negative • [first]we have the clinic, the police office, we have support programs for parents, um, many activities for youth in this office… [ask about nh] the problems that we have…a lot of, uh, the trailers that are here. And the other is that they showed us the pictures here of sex offenders that are living in this area. • Detailed descriptions of problems with traffic, strip club, gangs, sex offenders

16. Findings: families with children • Neighborhood space and scale • ‘High opportunity’ neighborhood families • Complex is still a focus • Can be problematic • Feels separate from “neighborhood” or “community”

17. Findings: families with children • Neighborhood space and scale • ‘High opportunity’ neighborhood families, particularly women of color • “…someone would look at it and say it’s a thriving community. There are people there. There are businesses there. There are patrons there. There’s people walking around, but it’s not inclusive to everyone. So it depends on what you would say is a community.” • “It’s not divided like you would know these are income based or restricted income based housing. It’s in the area, but it’s so limited that it’s obvious. You can tell, like this apartment complex that’s sitting right here is predominantly…...well, you visualize what people in affordable housing looks like…It’s pretty hard. There’s no communication. I mean, when I see people walking and talking to other folks, and they see someone else and they just walk past like they don’t even exist. That is an experience with me and my son, like we walk down [main st] and there’s people talking or they’ll pass right by us and not speak. There are some people who do, but it’s more or less like I just don’t exist. “

18. Findings: families with children • Articulation of ‘opportunity’ is clear • Access is a noun and a verb in ‘bad’ hood • Bienvenidos in place/as networked institution • Strategies for access • “I just finished a whole slew of scholarships applications for summer activities. I mean, we have no money but my kids are going to be in robotics and swimming all summer….You have to know how to get what you need with what you have. So I went to my kid’s school and there is an advocate there who said there are these programs out there. She kind of pointed me in the direction.”

19. Findings: families with children • Articulation of ‘opportunity’ is clear • Access is a noun and a verb in ‘bad’ hood • Schools out of neighborhood • We like this school [out of nh] because there are a lot of activities and programs. Because we are in the {ES} area. …The bus stops here, but the thing, since there aren’t activities, no immersion, there isn’t Spanish…and we’d like to stay at [school], because they have immersion, there are a lot of after school programs. • I don’t know if they’ll take this wrong way but I think that when there’s like, to be around a lot of Hispanic people, like my sons, …that’s why I have him at a private school, and he’s developing a different mentality. Like for example he is with kids—Americans, Black kids, so there are other Mexicans but not so much.

20. Findings: families with children • Articulation of ‘opportunity’ is clear • School is the motivation in ‘good’ hood • I couldn’t afford to live in southeast without [cdc]…with Portland public schools you can lottery. So my daughter lotteried and got accepted to [ES]…the reasons we chose the lottery is that I didn’t like the neighborhood school, but that was the only place that necessarily we could afford to live… It’s a strategy: this is my strategy… Really, when I think about neighborhoods, I think about the school that I want her to go to.

21. Findings: families with children • Articulation of ‘opportunity’ is clear • But access requires action in ‘good’ hood • School advocates not knowledgeable • Services not appropriate • Spend time getting around • But if you want help, you have to travel. …a lot of people, for the clothing closets here, they have to travel all the way to a high school over in Northeast Portland, which is a two-hour bus ride Everything has to be traveled to and it’s over…Northwest Portland has nothing to offer except food banks, and there’s only three that I know of….there’s a boundary limit. And we can look online. There’s places online. And everything else is on the other side. You have to be on that side of the freaking bridge. Or you have to…It’s just really line-based on where you live to get help. And so that really puts a damper on a lot of people in this area, because everybody in this apartment complex is low income.

22. Findings: Singles • # Single person households interviewed: older adults, disabled or out of job market • Nuanced and varied responses to normative “big picture” • Safety (25%) • Location/Accessibility (25%) • Environmental factors/Amenities (25%) • People (trustworthy) and transportation links (remainder) • Sense of the varied neighborhoods in Portland

23. Safety • Importance / aspects often related to own vulnerabilities • Women—physical safety; ability to walk at night and not be harassed • And how I gauge… I’ll tell you how I gauge if it’s a safe area or not for me. It’s more on a personal level of how I get approached. So if I notice that, when I come to this area, I get approached by a significant amount of men who don’t pick up on cues very well, if I notice that lots of people do a slow stare at me, and it’s not just like, hey, I’m observing you or saying hi while you’re walking by or whatever, but it’s like a hovering feeling, that’s where I don’t feel safe.

24. Singles: Safety • Importance / aspects often related to own vulnerabilities • Those in recovery—not wanting to be confronted with the “drama” of the streets, nor the temptation • I still go to my meetings and stuff, but I don’t need to be confronting the crack dealer on the corner and the next one a hundred feet away, and then the next one. So, I feel safe…for myself. Because I know that, you know, the Devil is within me. And you can say, no, nine out of ten times. But they know that one day they’re going to get you. And I can’t afford that. • So you end up staying at home just to survive the crap. That’s kind of the deal when you’re in a building like that. The neighborhood itself, there’s a lot of drugs being dealt down there. And I know it, and a lot of drinking going on outside and that sort of thing. It bothers me. Because of my past, I don’t like it around me. I’m not worried about it, but still even though it’s been so long I remember what it was like. I remember the pain of going through it. You know that sort of thing.

25. Singles: Scale-Building • Focus on physical nature of the building and nature of management • Physical configuration of building • I’ll tell you something. I don’t like those apartment complexes… What are they called? They’re like with courtyards. Those, I feel unsafe. I feel very unsafe in those most of the time. And I feel like I’ve been followed by people that are like hanging out in those. • Loss of autonomy/irritating rules • I found it a fairly cute apartment, that was willing to accept my Section 8, in a mixed-age building. So then I don’t have to be around so many old people. And it’s not run quite like…My building is like a hospital and run like a jail. I really think that’s a great quote. My building is like a hospital, run like a jail, for older people. • Lack of respect from management • And also about the place, I mean, one of the things is like, when I moved in there, they did this extensive background check on me, alright. But through the miracle of the Internet, I’ve done some background checking on some of the people that live there, including the management of the place, which we had the FBI came and took away one of the people that was the management there. He was on the Ten Most Wanted list, or whatever, in a big roundup. So those are like the kind of people who are in charge.

26. Singles: Accessing “Good Neighborhood” • Critical obstacles: lack of available units and money • {the wait list} Yeah, they’re long especially now. It’s really hard. You know, I applied for Section 8 twenty years ago or more and they turned me down. Now they have a lottery type deal. I got on that. It was five thousand people long. I had friends who got right on and they picked them. • I get $764 dollars a month, that’s it. Now, unless I want to move to a shack, which I don’t think I really want to live in, this is one of the more affordable. And because I get the $764 a month, I am not eligible for any of the services. I get food stamps, okay? I get OHP. But like, I’m not eligible for Section 8. I make too much money. No, I don’t! I pay phone. I pay rent. And I pay power. I’m quitting smoking because I can’t afford it anymore. • Yeah the dream place because I do that on HTV. I am like why am I watching this? I have no money. I can’t buy a seventy thousand dollar house and I don’t like to watch the ones that are over forty-five thousand. I don’t like to watch them. I go from the two fifty to the three hundred. I might as well. I’m watching it. ….It is so strange because the most important thing that they want is a big closet. …I don’t have enough clothes to fill it up. I don’t have two pairs of shoes.

27. Conclusions and implications • Safety/security • Spatiality of neighborhood • Complex/building is primary • Access as noun and verb • Singles need nearby services • Families with nearby services also network • Transport mode is important • Schools are complicated

28. Conclusions and implications • Is poverty a blinder? • Assess and evaluate; cannot access • Costs/benefits? • There are real costs to living in an ‘opportunity’ neighborhood • Careful to not undervalue as researchers

29. Conclusions and implications • Mobility programs • Counseling connect to neighborhood features to give meaningful direction • Care about service connections and networks • Defining ‘opportunity’ • Whose opportunity is it? • Differences among poor people

30. Acknowledgements and thanks West Coast Poverty Center Poverty and Policy Small Grant program Professor Marcia K. Meyers Denise Novotny Portland nonprofit housing agency partners Allison Moe, MURP student and GRA