ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses on how the differentiation of space in urban regions creates concentrations of poverty and its attendant problems, the scope of the problem, and the strengths and weaknesses of strategies that might be used to mitigate the problem. It focuses on recount at length the ebb and flow of federal antipoverty strategies, from the emergence of welfare, jobs programs, and housing associated with the new deal, to the Great Society programs of the 1960s, and to the partial retreat from federal involvement characterized by revenue sharing, tax cuts, and welfare reform. Concentration of the poor makes it more likely that poverty will be transmitted intergenerationally as parents and neighborhoods fail to provide the supports needed for children to attain the education, skills, and motivation to work productively. Deconcentrating poverty would address many of the problems created by neighborhood effects described by Wilson; and Massey and Denton.
