People vs. Place? Spatial Patterns of Federal Person-Based and Place-Based Investments, 1990-2019

• In Event: Place, Poverty, and Safety Net Assistance across State and Local Contexts

Abstract

Scholars and policymakers have long debated the relative merits of people- and place-based program approaches to improving opportunities in disadvantaged communities. Person- and place-based policy approaches are often framed as competing strategies for public investment. Whereas person-based policies provide direct aid to eligible individuals and households, place-based policies target specific geographic areas to improve local infrastructure, institutions, and economies. Place-based policies recognize that individual disadvantages are spatially clustered and that neighborhood conditions shape opportunities and quality of life (Sharkey and Faber 2014). Advocates of place-based investment frequently justify targeting disadvantaged communities on equity grounds. The federal government has been criticized for neglecting low-income communities, or for actively extracting resources from them, particularly those with large Black populations (Fullilove 2004; Massey and Denton 1993; Rothstein 2017; Squires 2011). Despite these rationales, the equity and efficiency of place-based policies remains contested (Brenner, Marcuse, and Mayer 2012; Dawkins 2013; Freeman 2005; Glaeser 2012; Glaeser and Gottlieb 2008; Marcuse 1985; Neumark and Simpson 2015; Robinson 2019). At the same time, person-based transfers may also be geographically concentrated within disadvantaged places. In this paper, we assess the geographic concentration and spatial overlap of federal person-based and place-based investments by combining two novel county-by-year datasets spanning 1990-2019. We assess the extent to which these two forms of investment are concentrated in the same locations or in distinct places, functioning as either substitutes or mutually reinforcing mechanisms of public investment. We also identify “left-behind” places that receive little of either type of support. We consider state-level variation in how federal person- and place-based policies are bundled, accounting for policies with different levels of state and local discretion. Finally, we analyze how these patterns have evolved over time following welfare reform, highlighting shared trajectories in both person- and place-based policies associated with economic development and the fiscalization of social policy.



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Apologies reviewer - this is extra text to get well over the 300 word cap, the portal is a little wonky with word count.
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Authors

• Laura Tach, Cornell University
  Presenting Author

• Emily A Parker, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Robert Allen Manduca, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Co-Author