“Family Mobility and Neighborhood Change: New evidence and implications for community initiatives”
Neighborhood environments strongly impact families' well-being and children's long-term life chances. A substantial body of social science research finds that growing up in a distressed, high poverty neighborhood is associated with an increased risk of bad outcomes, including school failure, poor health, delinquency and crime, teen parenting and joblessness.
The report, produced by the Urban Institute, measures how mobility contributed to changes in neighborhoods' composition and identifies groups of households that reflect different reasons for moving or staying in place. The report relies on survey data that tracked a panel of original residents -- including those who moved out of their homes -- neighborhoods and counties over the course of successive three year follow-up periods. Its final component identifies five stylized models of neighborhood performance, each of which includes implications for low-income families' well-being and community-change efforts.
