EXITS FROM HOMEOWNERSHIP: THE EFFECTS OF RACE,ETHNICITY, AND INCOME*

ABSTRACT This paper examines the extent to which populations experiencing low homeownership rates in the U.S. also experience high homeownership exit rates. We determine whether low‐income Hispanic and black households that achieve homeownership are as likely as white and high‐income households to sustain it. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics spanning the years 1970–2005, we find that low‐income homeowners consistently have higher homeownership exit rates, Hispanic households have higher raw exit rates prior to but not subsequent to 1997, and a black/white sustainability gap appears to arise post‐1997.     

DETERMINANTS OF IMMIGRANTS’ ENTRY TO HOMEOWNERSHIP IN THREE NORDIC CAPITAL CITY REGIONS

The extent of homeownership among immigrants may be seen as an indicator of integration and as a determinant of ethnic residential segregation. Studies have shown differences in the determinants of homeownership between immigrants and natives, indicating that variation in homeownership is not only a function of differences in economic resources. These studies have largely focused on Anglo‐American contexts, using mostly cross‐sectional data. We apply survival analysis methods to analyse the determinants of entry to homeownership in the capital regions of three Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland and Sweden – utilizing longitudinal individual‐level register‐based datasets. We find that differences in entry to homeownership between natives and different immigrant groups cannot be explained by differences in socio‐economic background factors. We also find differences in the effects of these factors. Effects of income are generally weaker among non‐Western immigrants and immigrants are less responsive to changes in household composition. The share of non‐Western immigrants in the neighbourhood is only weakly related to entry to homeownership, while immigrants and natives living in public rental housing tend to be slightly less inclined to move to homeownership. Weaker income effects among immigrants, weak effects of ethnic segregation and the importance of the public rental sector differentiate our results from earlier findings. Weaker income effects may indicate that uncertainty about the future also affects middle‐income immigrants. Differences between the three contexts in housing markets and policies do not seem to matter much, although the results indicate that difficult access to the private rental sector may push immigrants to homeownership.     

Foreclosure Risk and Community Health: Does Social Capital Have a Protective Effect?

This study draws upon the social determinants of health framework to model and test the extent to which a community’s social capital is health protective in the face of a substantial economic shock, namely the recent foreclosure crisis. U.S. county–level data are used to analyze potential moderating effects of social capital on health given a community’s foreclosure risk. We rely upon established social capital measures for U.S counties and merge them with county level foreclosure risk scores constructed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). While theorists suggest that social capital’s effect on health and other outcomes may be durable over time there have been few empirical tests of this. We interact established social capital indicators measured at two points in time with foreclosure risk to predict overall self-reported health. Our results provide strong support suggesting that high levels of social capital are health protective. Communities with high levels of social capital that are facing high foreclosure risks report significantly better aggregate health outcomes than comparable communities facing the same level of foreclosure risk, but lower levels of social capital.     

INVESTMENT RISK AND THE TRANSITION INTO HOMEOWNERSHIP*

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the extent to which house–price uncertainty affects the transition of renter households into homeownership. Using a 14‐year household panel from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics during the years 1984–1997 and measures of the time‐varying risk and return to owner‐occupied housing, we estimate a Cox proportional hazard model of the effect of house–price volatility on the transition into homeownership. Results indicate that house–price uncertainty has a negative and dramatic impact on transitions into homeownership. In addition, we find that the low‐wealth renters are particularly sensitive to house–price risk.     

Transmittance Analysis for the Translucent White Porcelain of the Xing Kiln,China

The Xing kiln, which is located in Xingtai, Hebei Province, is famous for white porcelain production, especially translucent white porcelain. However, the translucency, as the most important characteristic of translucent white porcelain, is rarely mentioned. In this study, eight samples including translucent white porcelain and non‐translucent white porcelain excavated from the Xing kiln are quantitatively analysed by a transmittance tester. The study points out the defects of the previous concept of translucent white porcelain based on light transmittance and proposes a new definition based on translucency. Translucent white porcelain is not deliberately thinned fine white porcelain, but a special kind of fine white porcelain with a body of excellent translucency. Further analysis reveals that all transmittance values of translucent white porcelain are more than 0.01% with a body thickness less than 6 cm, which is higher than that of non‐translucent white porcelain by about one or two orders of magnitude. The absorption coefficient for translucent white porcelain is close to ?0.82, while that for non‐translucent white porcelain is much closer to ?1.87. This research will serve to further studies on subjects such as the classification, colouring mechanism and firing technology of the translucent white porcelain of the Xing kiln. Moreover, it is expected to set a new stage for discussing the translucency of ancient porcelain.     

Neighborhoods and Fertility in Accra, Ghana: An AMOEBA-based Approach

Fertility levels remain high in most of sub-Saharan Africa, despite recent declines, and even in a large capital city such as Accra, Ghana, women are having children at a pace that is well above replacement level and this will contribute to significant levels of future population growth in the city. Our purpose in this paper is to evaluate the way in which neighborhood context may shape reproductive behavior in Accra. In the process, we introduce several important innovations to the understanding of intra-urban fertility levels in a sub-Saharan African city: (1) despite the near explosion of work on neighborhoods as a spatial unit of analysis, very little of this research has been conducted outside of the richer countries; (2) we characterize neighborhoods on the basis of local knowledge of what we call "vernacular neighborhoods"; (3) we then define what we call "organic neighborhoods" using a new clustering tool-the AMOEBA algorithm-to create these neighborhoods; and then (4) we evaluate and explain which of the neighborhood concepts has the largest measurable contextual effect on an individual woman's reproductive behavior. Multi-level regression analysis suggests that vernacular neighborhoods are more influential on a woman's decision to delay marriage, whereas the organic neighborhoods based on socioeconomic status better capture the factors that shape fertility decisions after marriage.     

WHY DO RENTERS STAY IN OR LEAVE CERTAIN NEIGHBORHOODS? THE ROLE OF NEIGHBORHOOD CHARACTERISTICS,HOUSING TENURE TRANSITIONS,AND RACE

Given significant variation in population turnover and stability across neighborhoods, this study examines why renters stay in or leave certain neighborhoods. It is the first to analyze how neighborhood characteristics influence renters’ decisions to move within the neighborhood as well as how these decisions are interrelated with their housing tenure transitions and race. Results demonstrate that homeownership rates have a significant, positive association with the probability that renters stay and/or purchase homes in the current neighborhood. Both the tenure composition of the housing stock and higher neighborhood satisfaction appear to be central in understanding this association. Results also suggest that nonblack renters are more likely to leave neighborhoods that experience growth in the percentage of the black population, while blacks are more likely to stay and purchase homes within such neighborhoods.     

Burned,Broke, and Brilliant: Latinx Community Workers’ Experiences Across the Greater Toronto Area's Non‐Profit Sector

This paper explores how women and non‐binary Latinx community workers (LCWs), in the Greater Toronto Area, navigate multiple interlocking forces of oppression like racialisation, heterosexism and neoliberalism, when advancing social justice across the non‐profit sector. Using an intersectionality framework in tandem with testimonio methodology, including 37 testimonios, a workshop and participant observation, I show how LCWs are constrained by, but also contest, a white neoliberal non‐profit funding structure and patriarchal political system. I also explore how community work has contradictory effects on the mental, physical and economic wellbeing of LCWs. Lastly, I demonstrate how LCWs persist by weaving together their family and community histories, personal experiences and women of colour feminisms to enact a Latinx decolonial feminist praxis. I consider what lessons a Latinx decolonial feminist praxis can bring to bear on debates in human geography around neoliberalism, the non‐profit sector and social justice transformation.     

Racial rent differences in U.S. housing markets: Evidence from the housing voucher program

This paper exploits an unusually rich data set to estimate racial differences in the rents paid for identical housing in the same neighborhood in U.S. housing markets and to show how they vary with neighborhood racial composition. Results suggest that black households pay more for identical housing in identical neighborhoods than their white counterparts and that this rent gap increases with the fraction of the neighborhood white. In neighborhoods with the smallest fraction white, the premium is about 0.6%. In neighborhoods with the largest fraction white, it is about 2.4%. This pattern holds across different types of areas.     

Electoral redistricting and minority political representation in Canada and the United States

This article compares the political representation of visible minorities in Canada and the United States, focusing on differences in federal redistribution (redistricting) practices and constituency composition. Although the two countries both use territorially‐based electoral systems, they operate under different legal standards and institutional environments for the creation of ridings (districts). In the US, redistricting is a highly political process, yet must respect strict population equality standards. Litigation over redistricting is common, and courts adjudicate voting and representation under a constitutional system enforcing strong individual rights. In contrast, Canada's redistribution process is relatively nonpartisan, permits large population variances among ridings, places more emphasis on community rights, and is seldom subject to extensive court challenges. Despite these differences, the two countries exhibit striking similarities in the overall level of visible minority representation relative to population share. Conversely, Canada's population inequalities among ridings create a systematic disadvantage for visible minorities. Political attention to visible minority representation is stronger in the US, but the means to achieve it are constrained both by the judicial limits on group representation and the constitutional limits on the use of racial identity. Canada has a framework for political representation that could easily accommodate significant visible minority representation but lacks the political imperative to use it, in part because doing so would run counter to Canada's multicultural image of these groups as immigrants rather than as non‐white minorities.     

Violence and territorial order in Caracas,Venezuela

In 2015, Caracas, Venezuela, had a homicide rate of 75 per 100,000 inhabitants, which made it one of the most violent cities in the world that year. Despite these high rates of violence, the international community knows relatively little about the dynamics underlying conflict in the city. Through a systematic comparison of three poor and working-class neighborhoods in the Caracas metropolitan area, this article analyzes the factors that have driven these remarkably high rates of violence, as well as those factors that have configured the heterogeneous violent conditions that operate across the city. Building on extensive interviews in these neighborhoods, we argue that the levels of violence in particular locales derive from the ways in which the Bolivarian political regime failed in its efforts to incorporate the poor and working-class inhabitants of different parts of the metropolitan area into the political, social, and economic systems that dominate the country today. We also argue that variation in violence results from the way in which certain neighborhoods are geographically inserted into local illicit economies and the political and social dynamics of an increasingly violent and unstable political system.     

Urban contexts,spatially dispersed networks,and the diffusion of political information

This paper examines the spatial and temporal diffusion of political information within urban areas. We construct a multi-level analysis of information and communication, dependent on time, that is based on interviews with residents of the Indianapolis and St Louis metropolitan areas during the 1996 presidential election campaign. Moreover, based on a social network name generator, interviews were also conducted with discussants of the main respondents to the survey. Both sets of interviews are spread over a period of ten months, and we are able to locate the main respondents and their discussants within the urban neighborhoods where they reside. Hence, both the individual respondents and their discussants are located in time and space. Levels of aggregation are both dynamic and spatial, based on individuals who are located within residential neighborhoods and networks of social and political communication.We draw three main conclusions. First, not all networks are spatially dispersed, but some are, and the factors that give rise to spatial dispersion are directly related to an individual’s position in social structure. Second, spatially dispersed networks produce a number of important consequences, but none is more important than decreasing the density of the respondents’ communication networks. Finally, spatially dispersed networks are not necessarily politically diverse, but they are more likely to connect individuals who reside in socially and politically divergent settings.     

Gambling,Resource Distribution,and Racial Economy: An Examination of Poker Machine Expenditure in Three Remote Australian Towns

Our aim in this paper is to examine the ways in which electronic gaming machines (EGMs) redistribute resources to and from three remote towns in the Northern Territory (NT), namely Katherine, Tennant Creek and Nhulunbuy. We describe EGM expenditure levels in each town at the level of the individual venue, examine patterns of socioeconomic status within each town, explore the ways in which EGM markets are racialised through venue gate‐keeping practices and spatially‐based alcohol regulations, and examine the effects of resource redistribution mechanisms designed to return a proportion of EGM profits to host communities. The ability of venues to draw resources from extremely disadvantaged groups from the remote periphery is of central concern when attempting to assess the societal consequences of gambling in remote towns, both in terms of individual harm and the adequacy of resource redistribution. Existing mechanisms for resource redistribution are both selective and relatively meagre, pointing to a political and racial economy of EGM gambling that transfers resources from remote towns to sites of centralised ‘white’ power. We conclude that political economy in the context of remote NT towns may not be understood outside a consideration of racial economy and the way that constructed notions of race operate to legitimate existing processes of economic exploitation and resource redistribution.     

New Statistical Approaches to Intra‐individual Isotopic Analysis and Modelling of Birth Seasonality in Studies of Herd Animals

This paper introduces improved methods for statistically assessing birth seasonality and intra‐annual variation in δ¹⁸O from faunal tooth enamel. The first method estimates input parameters for use with a previously developed parametric approach by C. Tornero et al. The second method uses a non‐parametric clustering procedure to group individuals with similar time‐series data and estimate birth seasonality. This method was successful in analysing data from a modern sample with known season of birth, as well as two heterogeneous archaeological data sets. Modelling indicates that the non‐parametric approach estimates birth seasonality more successfully than the parametric method when less of the tooth row is preserved. The new approach offers a high level of statistical rigour and flexibility in dealing with the time‐series data produced through intra‐individual sampling in isotopic analysis.     

The Difference that Class Makes: Neoliberalization and Non‐Capitalism in the Fishing Industry of New England

Abstract: Fishing economies are typically represented as pre‐capitalist and as a barrier to capital accumulation rather than as an alternative economy with its own potentials. Privatization (and capitalism) appears logical and inevitable because “there is no alternative” described or given. The class analysis presented here focuses on questions of property and subjectivity and describes fishing as a non‐capitalist and community‐based economy consonant with both a tradition of common property and an image of “fishermen” as independent and interested in fairness and equity. While the latter is associated with a neoliberal subject aligned with the capitalist economy, a class analysis of fishing repositions “fishermen” as community subjects aligned with a community economy.     

Tourists,sailors and labourers: A survey of early labour recruiting in Southern Melanesia

Abstract

This essay explores missionary allegations about slave‐dealing in Fiji, and their acceptance by British officials, as cultural responses to sexual relationships between indigenous women and white men. It also examines the imperial implications of ‘the culture of anti‐slavery’, whereby rhetoric about the enslavement of non‐European women became a rationale for attempted legal intervention in the mixed‐race community of Levuka. Finally, it considers how humanitarian rep resentations were contested, then appropriated, by one of the objects of their disapproval: a ‘lawless’ white man from Levuka. William Nimmo's response to the anti‐slavery proclamation gives us valuable information about Levuka's growing self‐definition as a community, and its attempts to control behaviour within its ranks. Using the ‘Christianisation and civilisation’ argument as successfully as the missionaries had, Nimmo and his friends sought recognition and respect from British authorities who seemed biased toward the missionary point of view, while making their own bid for official support in Fiji.     

“It's not like your home”: Homeless Encampments,Housing Projects,and the Struggle over Domestic Space

Based on an analysis of housing projects and homeless encampments in Fresno, California, this paper argues that both anti‐homeless policing and housing provision mutually constrain homeless people's expressions of home, such that struggles over domestic space have become integral to the contemporary politics of US homelessness. In particular, this article asserts that contemporary homelessness policy is marked by a clash between competing visions of home. While housing projects in Fresno are based on a model of privatized and surveilled apartments, people who lived in local encampments often asserted alternative notions of home grounded in community rather than family, mutual care rather than institutional care, and appropriation rather than consumption. Meanwhile, local officials viewed such alternative domestic spaces as non‐homes worthy of destruction. Rather than valorizing domestic struggles above public or institutional struggles, this article seeks to move beyond geographic binaries to more holistically approach the politics of US homelessness.     

Community Driven Development,Collective Action and Elite Capture in Indonesia

In response to the well documented limitations of top‐down, modernist and authoritarian approaches that have dominated development, practitioners and academics increasingly promote more community‐based approaches. The World Bank uses the term ‘community driven development’ to describe projects that increase a community's control over the development process. In an analysis of a community driven poverty alleviation project in Indonesia, this article examines the vulnerability of such an approach to elite capture. The expected relationships among a community's capacity for collective action, elite control over project decisions and elite capture of project benefits were not found. In cases where the project was controlled by elites, benefits continued to be delivered to the poor, and where power was the most evenly distributed, resource allocation to the poor was restricted. Communities where both non‐elites and elites participated in democratic self‐governance, however, did demonstrate an ability to redress elite capture when it occurred.     

Is Sydney a Divided City Ethnically?

Recent claims that Sydney's ethnic residential concentrations are a permanent feature and that the city is rapidly turning into a city bifurcated along an ethnic divide cannot be sustained by the evidence. An understanding of multicultural policies as they operate in Australia, and of segregation as essentially a transitory phenomenon there, suggests that social bifurcation is unlikely to occur. Immigrant concentrations in the poor suburbs are nothing new, and do not imply the entrapment of ethnic groups. While immigrant residential concentrations are increasing in size, commensurate with the influx of large numbers of migrants from non‐English speaking backgrounds over the past 30 years, the evidence suggests that claims of bifurcation are a product of the usage of birthplace data, the aggregation of ethnic groups into just two groups and a failure to take account of the degree of mixing. Evidence from both birthplace and ancestry data using different levels of ethnic aggregation and more appropriate analyses shows that Sydney is dominated by an intermixing of different ethnic groups with each other and with the host society, and not by high levels of ethnic segregation. Ancestry data from the 2001 Census show the spatial assimilation into the host society of the grandchildren, but less so the children, of immigrants in Sydney with similar rates for both the white non‐Anglo‐Celtic and the Asian populations.     

Rethinking Land Struggle in the Postindustrial City

The racial and cultural politics of land and property are central to urban struggle, but have received relatively little attention in geography. This paper analyzes land struggles in Detroit where over 100,000 parcels of land are classified as “vacant”. Since 2010, planners and government officials have been developing controversial plans to ruralize Detroit's “vacant” neighborhoods as part of a program of fiscal austerity, reigniting old questions of racialized dispossession, sovereignty, and struggles for liberation. This paper analyzes these contentious politics by examining disputes over a white businessman's proposal to build the world's largest urban forest in the center of a Black majority city. I focus on how residents, urban farmers, and community activists resisted the project by making counterclaims to vacant land as an urban commons. They argued that the land is inhabited not empty and that it belonged to those who labored upon and suffered for it. Combining community‐based ethnography with insights from critical property theory, critical race studies, and postcolonial theory, I argue that land struggles in Detroit are more than distributional conflicts over resources. They are inextricable from debates over notions of race, property, and citizenship that undergird modern liberal democracies and ongoing struggles for decolonization.