When Only a House Makes a Home
How Home Selection Matters in the Residential Mobility Decisions of Lower-Income, Inner-City African American Families
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10540331 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Holly Wood (Harvard University Press, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 88 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 264-294 |
| Publication date | 2014-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Service Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0037-7961 • E-ISSN: 1537-5404 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/676407 |
| OpenAlex | W2061327461 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 22 |
| References cited | 40 |
The correlation between neighborhood poverty and poor life-course outcomes is well documented. However, when examining residential mobility, scholars frequently neglect the role of dwelling in housing decisions and its potential contribution to the reproduction of concentrated poverty. Based on in-depth interviews with 40 lower-income African American mothers residing in Baltimore, this article illustrates how resource-constrained households give priority to dwelling attributes (including size, type, and unit amenities) when conducting a housing search and then satisfice on neighborhood-level criteria. This elucidates why some households remain in resource-poor neighborhoods even when they acquire the means to live in more affluent areas. The mothers’ narratives further reveal the strategies they use to mitigate their perception of neighborhood danger, allowing their residential selection to pivot primarily on fulfilling perceived dwelling needs. This research widens sociological awareness to a broader range of mechanisms reproducing neighborhood inequality and also offers new insight as to why housing policy often fails to deconcentrate poverty
Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economics · Inequality · Neglect · Perception · Poverty · Public economics · Resource (disambiguation · Selection (genetic algorithm · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Unit (ring theory · Homelessness and Social Issues · Housing Market and Economics · Psychology · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
Take Me Home
Forced Relocation and Residential Instability among Urban Renters
When Someone Cares About You, It’s Priceless”
Rigging the Rules of the Game
Pushing the Boundaries
Why Poor Families Move (And Where They Go)
Not Just a Lateral Move”
How Are African Americans Currently Represented in Various Social Work Venues
Black M/Otherhood
Choosing homes without choosing schools? How urban parents navigate decisions about neighborhoods and school choice
Housing mobility and the intergenerational durability of neighborhood poverty
The effect of market conditions on the housing outcomes of subsidized households
The use of markets in housing policy
Effects of housing vouchers on the long-term exposure to neighbourhood opportunity among low-income families
The Unequal Availability of Rental Housing Information Across Neighborhoods
Social Reproduction and the Housing Question
Is Social Work Still Racist? A Content Analysis of Recent Literature
Understanding the 'package deal
Located Institutions
Housing Insecurity Among the Poor Today
Horizontal Immobility
Situational Trust
The truly disadvantaged
Neighborhood poverty
American apartheid
When Work Disappears
Promises I Can Keep
Moving to Opportunity
You gotta move
“… And a suitable living environment”
All our kin
The Effects of Neighborhood Disadvantage on Adolescent Development
Moving to Opportunity in Boston
Four Reasons to Abandon the Idea of “The Ghetto”
The Geography of Opportunity
The “Underclass” Revisited
Patterns of Section 8 Relocation in the Hope vi Program
What’s the ’Hood Got to Do with It? Parental Perceptions about How Neighborhood Mechanisms Affect Their Children
How Long are Exposures to Poor Neighborhoods? The Long-Term Dynamics of Entry and Exit from Poor Neighborhoods
Locational Constraint, Housing Counseling, and Successful Lease-up in a Randomized Housing Voucher Experiment
Neighborhood selection and the social reproduction of concentrated racial inequality
Locational returns to human capital
Residential preferences and residential choices in a multiethnic context
The Rise and Decline of the American Ghetto
Girls in the ’Hood
Use of Black English and Racial Discrimination in Urban Housing Markets
The Black-White Test Score Gap
International Perspectives on the Residential Mobility of America's Children
The Neighborhood Context of Adolescent Mental Health
Neighborhood Racial-Composition Preferences
The Residential Preferences of Blacks
Managing To Make It
Community Effects on Youth Sexual Activity
Moving to Inequality
The Intergenerational Transmission of Context
Escaping Distressed Neighborhoods
Stereotypes and Segregation
| Unique citing works | 22 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,83 |
| Citation span | 2014 - 2025 (12) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 22 |