Space and Poverty: The Effect of Concentrated Poverty on Employment in Large Urban Areas

From 1970 to 1980, the percent of poor living in high poverty census tracts (poverty rates of forty percent or greater) increased by 27 percent (Jargowsky and Bane, 1991). This increase in the concentration of poverty has occurred almost exclusively in large urban areas and among minorities (Massey and Eggers, 1989). For minority poor living in such areas, the 'area-poverty' experienced by the poor has increased quite dramatically. A greater proportion of the people with whom poor residents come into contact are also poor; fewer are nonpoor. If living in such areas of concentrated poverty affects the chances of escaping poverty, then this increase has profound social and policy implications. In the following, we refer to the impact of the spatial concentration of poverty on the life chances of the poor as a "concentration effect." This paper is an empirical exploration of the presence and magnitude of a concentration effect on employment.