ABSTRACT
Here I focus on the two aspects of Professor Spencer’s chapter that, to my mind at least, raise some of the most important issues regarding neighborhood effects on families and children.
THE VARIABLE SALIENCE OF NEIGHBORHOODS Although touched on relatively briefly in Professor Spencer’s chapter, the question of whether neighborhood characteristics affect all social and demographic groups in the same way is an important, but largely unresolved, issue. Professor Spencerquite correctly, I think-suggests that residence in disadvantaged neighborhoods may have different effects for younger versus older children, and different effects for boys and young men than for girls and young women. Implicit in her analysis as well is that neighborhood characteristics have different effects for African American youth than for White adolescents. It might be worth pushing this idea even further to consider in greater detail under what conditions and for what types of people neighborhood conditions might make a difference.
