Neighborhood Violence and the Network Stratification of Inter-Neighborhood Employment Patterns

• In Event: Crime and Place: Interactions between People and Places

Abstract

"Neighborhood reputation can constitute a heavy burden on its residents as they are seeking employment. Whether because of discrimination or lack of access to networks and information, living in a violent neighborhood may make it more difficult to obtain or maintain a job in a nonviolent neighborhood. Using longitudinal data on the location of employers and residents, this study examines the extent to which violent urban communities in Chicago and Detroit are more likely to be connected through commuting flows to other violent communities, while nonviolent ones connected to other nonviolent ones. It uses spatial and network analyses tools to investigate the conditions under which lower violence in the neighborhood of residence translates or not into lower violence in the neighborhood of work. Specifically, it assesses the extent to which low-income residents of nonviolent communities are more likely to be employed in violent communities rather than other non-violent communities. The findings seek to advance our understanding of the role of violence for a neighborhoods' network context  of residents' employment and to bring new insights on place stratification by residence and workplace location with implications for the literature on social disorganization and spatial mismatch."

Author

• Corina Graif, Pennsylvania State University