Eviction and the Reproduction of Urban Poverty1

@article{Desmond2012EvictionAT,
  title={Eviction and the Reproduction of Urban Poverty1},
  author={Matthew Desmond},
  journal={American Journal of Sociology},
  year={2012},
  volume={118},
  pages={88 - 133}
}
  • Matthew Desmond
  • Published 1 July 2012
  • Sociology, History
  • American Journal of Sociology
Combining statistical and ethnographic analyses, this article explores the prevalence and ramifications of eviction in the lives of the urban poor. A quantitative analysis of administrative and survey data finds that eviction is commonplace in inner-city black neighborhoods and that women from those neighborhoods are evicted at significantly higher rates than men. A qualitative analysis of ethnographic data based on fieldwork among evicted tenants and their landlords reveals multiple mechanisms… 
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References

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Sociologists long have observed that the urban poor rely on kinship networks to survive economic destitution. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among evicted tenants in high-poverty neighborhoods,…

Clearing the Way: Deconcentrating the Poor in Urban America

Over the past three decades, the concentration of poverty in America?s inner cities has exacerbated a wide range of social problems. School delinquency, school dropout, teenage pregnancy,…

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  • Economics
    American Journal of Sociology
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This article argues that racial segregation is crucial to explaining the emergence of the urban underclass during the 1970s. A strong interaction between rising rates of poverty and high levels of…

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The racial dimension of state-supported gentrification in large US cities is examined by looking at the direct and indirect displacement induced by public housing transformation, showing a clear tendency towards the demolition of public housing projects with disproportionately high African American occupancy.

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This paper examines the connections between homelessness among older people and both evictions by statutory housing providers and repossessions by mortgage institutions. The evidence is from 45…

Systematic Social Observation of Public Spaces: A New Look at Disorder in Urban Neighborhoods1

This article assesses the sources and consequences of public disorder. Based on the videotaping and systematic rating of more than 23,000 street segments in Chicago, highly reliable scales of social…

Unpolicing the Urban Poor : Consequences of Third-Party Policing for Inner-City Women

Recent decades have witnessed a double movement within the field of crime control characterized by the prison boom and intensive policing, on the one hand, and widespread implementation of new…

The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville

Two of the most celebrated black neighborhoods in the United States - Harlem in New York City and Bronzeville in Chicago - were once plagued by crime, drugs, and abject poverty. But now both have…

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This article links longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics with information on respondents' census tracts to examine patterns of annual residential mobility between poor and nonpoor…

Evictions: The hidden housing problem

Abstract Although evictions are a major housing problem that disproportionately affects lower‐income and minority tenants, no systematic data about evictions are collected on a local or national…
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