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Resilience and Persistence of the Synergism of Plagues: Stochastic Resonance and the Ecology of Disease, Disorder and Disinvestment in US Urban Neighborhoods

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  • R Wallace

    (The Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903, USA and The New York Psychiatric Institute, 722 West 168 Street, New York, NY 10032, USA)

  • D Wallace

    (Public Service Division, Consumers Union, Yonkers, NY 10703, USA)

Abstract

We adapt recent perspectives on the resilience of ecosystems in a stochastic environment to analysis of the effects of public policies of ‘planned shrinkage’ on stressed US urban minority neighborhoods. The ‘synergism of plagues’—a self-reinforcing, interactive mix of contagious urban decay and deterioration in both public health and public order—emerges in the course of a sudden ‘phase transition’ from community-spanning geographically focused social networks within ghetto neighborhoods to a condition of fragmented and isolated subnets. This transition occurs because instabilities inherent in the marginalization of ethnic ghetto neighborhoods synergistically amplify externally imposed stressors, most notably public policies of disinvestment. The amplification, a short-time version of stochastic resonance, may be quite large. Our work implies that continued subjection of marginalized US urban minority neighborhoods to public policies of ‘planned shrinkage’ can trigger similar but larger scale—regional and national—transitions in patterns of public health and public order, ultimately placing much of the three quarters of the country's population living in or near central cities at significantly increased risk.

Suggested Citation

  • R Wallace & D Wallace, 1997. "Resilience and Persistence of the Synergism of Plagues: Stochastic Resonance and the Ecology of Disease, Disorder and Disinvestment in US Urban Neighborhoods," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 29(5), pages 789-804, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:29:y:1997:i:5:p:789-804
    DOI: 10.1068/a290789
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Wallace, Rodrick & Fullilove, Mindy Thompson & Flisher, Alan J., 1996. "AIDS, violence and behavioral coding: Information theory, risk behavior and dynamic process on core-group sociogeographic networks," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 339-352, August.
    2. Wallace, Rodrick & Wallace, Deborah, 1995. "U.S. Apartheid and the spread of AIDS to the suburbs: A multi-city analysis of the political economy of spatial epidemic threshold," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 333-345, August.
    3. Wallace, Rodrick, 1990. "Urban desertification, public health and public order: 'Planned shrinkage', violent death, substance abuse and AIDS in the Bronx," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 801-813, January.
    4. David Arsen, 1992. "Property Tax Assessment Rates and Residential Abandonment," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 361-377, July.
    5. R Wallace & D Wallace, 1997. "The Destruction of US Minority Urban Communities and the Resurgence of Tuberculosis: Ecosystem Dynamics of the White Plague in the Dedeveloping World," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 29(2), pages 269-291, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Durie, Robin & Wyatt, Katrina, 2007. "New communities, new relations: The impact of community organization on health outcomes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(9), pages 1928-1941, November.

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