ABSTRACT
The challenge is to identify the geography that matters, both in terms of distribution of opportunity and information. Most studies use a very crude proxy, the census tract, to study the neighborhood. Tracts can consist of many city blocks or, in the country, square miles, and thus often include multiple neighborhoods. Though proximity to institutions, jobs, amenities, networks, and social disorganization clearly matters, it is not clear which of the factors matters most. Community development is a collaborative, collective, self-renewing action taken by a group of people to enhance the long-term social, economic, and environmental assets of a place to which they are tied. Typically, in the United States this takes the form not of self-help, but of local organizations acting with federal, state, or city support. Suburbs tend to be more resilient than cities for several reasons. One is that communities are able to absorb poverty that is relatively low and not spatially concentrated.
