ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses six characteristics that are traditionally associated with poor blacks in inner-city, concentrated poverty communities, including joblessness, welfare dependence, single-parent households, neighborhood criminal activity, civil disobedience/rioting, and social isolation. If, as cultural theorists argue, blacks are culturally predisposed to form single-parent households, then the incidence of the type of family structure should be significantly lower among poor whites in concentrated poverty neighborhoods. Concentrated poverty neighborhoods predominated by blacks are also notorious for either high levels of criminal activity or the perception that criminal activity is problematic. Predominantly black inner-city neighborhoods have also been historically associated with civil disobedience tactics as well as rioting as a means of affecting the public policy process. Apart from the concentrated poverty neighborhoods being viewed in terms of low employment rates and welfare dependence, they are also frequently associated with high concentrations of single-parent households.
