Adolescent Residents Negotiate the Construction of Social Problems in a Low-Income Community: Making Claims on the “City of Sadness”

2012 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 244-269
Author(s):  
Wing-Chung Ho
Author(s):  
Rachel Peletz ◽  
Caroline Delaire ◽  
Joan Kones ◽  
Clara MacLeod ◽  
Edinah Samuel ◽  
...  

Unsafe sanitation is an increasing public health concern for rapidly expanding cities in low-income countries. Understanding household demand for improved sanitation infrastructure is critical for planning effective sanitation investments. In this study, we compared the stated and revealed willingness to pay (WTP) for high-quality, pour-flush latrines among households in low-income areas in the city of Nakuru, Kenya. We found that stated WTP for high-quality, pour-flush latrines was much lower than market prices: less than 5% of households were willing to pay the full costs, which we estimated between 87,100–82,900 Kenyan Shillings (KES), or 871–829 USD. In addition, we found large discrepancies between stated and revealed WTP. For example, 90% of households stated that they would be willing to pay a discounted amount of 10,000 KES (100 USD) for a high-quality, pour-flush latrine, but only 10% of households redeemed vouchers at this price point (paid via six installment payments). Households reported that financial constraints (i.e., lack of cash, other spending priorities) were the main barriers to voucher redemption, even at highly discounted prices. Our results emphasize the importance of financial interventions that address the sizable gaps between the costs of sanitation products and customer demand among low-income populations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 10089
Author(s):  
Andre M. Eanes ◽  
Todd R. Lookingbill ◽  
Jeremy S. Hoffman ◽  
Kelly C. Saverino ◽  
Stephen S. Fong

Air pollution and the urban heat island effect are consistently linked to numerous respiratory and heat-related illnesses. Additionally, these stressors disproportionately impact low-income and historically marginalized communities due to their proximity to emissions sources, lack of access to green space, and exposure to other adverse environmental conditions. Here, we use relatively low-cost stationary sensors to analyze PM2.5 and temperature data throughout the city of Richmond, Virginia, on the ten hottest days of 2019. For both hourly means within the ten hottest days of 2019 and daily means for the entire record for the year, the temperature was found to exhibit a positive correlation with PM2.5. Analysis of hourly means on the ten hottest days yielded a diurnal pattern in which PM2.5 levels peaked in the early morning and reached their minima in the mid-afternoon. Spatially, sites exhibiting higher temperatures consistently had higher PM2.5 readings, with vulnerable communities in the east end and more intensely developed parts of the city experiencing significantly higher temperatures and PM2.5 concentrations than the suburban neighborhoods in the west end. These findings suggest an uneven distribution of air pollution in Richmond during extreme heat events that are similar in pattern but less pronounced than the temperature differences during these events, although further investigation is required to verify the extent of this relationship. As other studies have found both of these environmental stressors to correlate with the distribution of green space and other land-use factors in cities, innovative and sustainable planning decisions are crucial to the mitigation of these issues of inequity going forward.


Urban Studies ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (9) ◽  
pp. 1967-1982 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Deng

This paper develops a theoretical framework for institutional analysis of the governance of low-income housing in the city. I focus on the provision of local public goods as a central issue for low-income housing. Factors that affect the governance structure from the efficiency perspective and the equity perspective, respectively, are explored. I argue that over-subsidisation is an important problem for income-redistribution institutions and, hence, public housing or social housing becomes an important form of governmental intervention in low-income housing. The framework is then applied to low-income housing in China. In particular, I analyse the governance structures of several major types of low-income housing including public rental housing, private low-income housing, work-unit compound and urban village.


Author(s):  
Leandro Benmergui

As the number of favelas and poor residents of Rio de Janeiro grew quickly by the mid-20th century, they became the object of policymaking, social science research, real estate speculation, and grassroots mobilization. After a decade in which local authorities recognized the de facto presence of favelas but without legally ascertaining the right of permanence, the 1960s and early 1970s witnessed the era of mass eradication. Seemingly contradictory—but complementary—policies also included the development of massive low-income housing complexes and innovative community development and favela urbanization experiences empowered by community organizations with the assistance of experts committed to improving the lives of poor Cariocas (residents of Rio). Favelas in Rio were at the crossroads of a particular interplay of forces: the urgent need to modernize Rio’s obsolete and inadequate urban infrastructure; the new administrative status of the city after the inauguration of Brasilia; and the redefinition of the balance of power between local, municipal, and federal forces in a time of radical politics and authoritarian and technocratic military regimes, Cold War diplomacy, and the transnational flows of expertise and capital.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 331-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fahad Fahimullah ◽  
Yi Geng ◽  
Bradley Hardy ◽  
Daniel Muhammad ◽  
Jeffrey Wilkins

The District of Columbia will increase its minimum wage to $15 per hour in 2020. The city also provides a local refundable earned income tax credit (EITC) equal to 40% of the federal EITC. Using a computable general equilibrium model, the authors estimate the economic impact of the $15 wage policy. They also use a tax policy microsimulation model to estimate how the city’s EITC interacts with a higher minimum wage. Overall, the authors find that the higher minimum wage will produce significant income gains for most of the city’s low-wage workers, with relatively few job losses. Additionally, they forecast that most city EITC recipients will receive a lower EITC, but higher earnings more than offset the reduced tax credit. The model predicts that this policy change would largely be funded by higher consumer prices, lower firm profits, and higher business productivity. These predictions are subject to important caveats, including a local labor market that is likely inadequately characterized in a model assuming perfect competition. Economic policy makers should therefore use such modeling approaches as a powerful but ultimately imperfect tool.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Weiss ◽  
Alyssa Ratledge ◽  
Colleen Sommo ◽  
Himani Gupta

Nationwide, graduation rates at community colleges are discouragingly low. This randomized experiment provides evidence that graduation rates can be increased dramatically. The City University of New York’s (CUNY) Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) is a comprehensive, integrated, 3-year program that has an estimated 18 percentage point effect on 3-year graduation rates, increases 6-year graduation rates by an estimated 10 percentage points, and helps students graduate more quickly. Graduation effect estimates of this magnitude are exceptional in randomized experiments conducted in higher education, offering hope of what is possible when serving low-income students. (JEL H75, I23, I24, I28)


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Souza ◽  
Caroline Mota ◽  
Amanda Rosa ◽  
Ciro Figueiredo ◽  
Ana Lucia Candeias

Abstract Background: Given the increasing rates at which cases of people infected by Covid-19 have been evolving to case-fatality rates on a global scale and the context of there being a world-wide socio-economic crisis, decision-making must be undertaken based on prioritizing effective measures to control and combat the disease since there is a lack of effective drugs and as yet no vaccine. Method: This paper explores the determinant factors of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on Recife, Pernambuco-Brazil by performing both local and global spatial regression analysis on two types of environmental data-sets. Data were obtained from ten specific days between late April and early July 2020, comprehending the ascending, peak and descending behaviours of the curve of infections.Results: This study highlights the importance of identifying and mapping clusters of the most affected neighbourhoods and their determinant effects. We have identified that it is increasingly common for there to be a phase in which hotspots of confirmed cases appear in a well-developed and heavily densely-populated neighbourhood of the city of Recife. From there, the disease is carried to areas characterised by having a precarious provision of public services and a low-income population and this quickly creates hotspots of case-fatality rates. The results also help to understand the influence of the age, income, level of education of the population and, additionally, of the extent to which they can access public services, on the behaviour of the virus across neighbourhoods.Conclusion: This study supports government measures against the spread of Covid-19 in heterogeneous cities, evidencing social inequality as a driver for a high incidence of fatal cases of the disease. Understanding the variables which influence the local dynamics of the virus spread becomes vital for identifying the most vulnerable regions for which prevention actions need to be developed.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesus Barajas ◽  
Anne Brown

Transit has long connected people to opportunities but access to transit varies greatly across space. In some cases, unevenly distributed transit supply creates gaps in service that impede travelers’ abilities to cross space and access jobs or other opportunities. With the advent of ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, however, travelers now have a new potential to gain automobility without high car purchase costs and in the absence of reliable transit service. Research remains mixed on whether ride-hailing serves as a modal complement or substitute to transit or whether ride-hailing fills transit service needs gaps. This study measures transit supply in Chicago and compares it to ride-hailing origins and destinations to examine if ride-hailing fills existing transit service gaps. Findings reveal clustering of ride-hailing pickups and drop-offs across the City of Chicago, but that the number of ride-hailing pickups and drop-offs was most strongly associated with high neighborhood median household income rather than measures of transit supply. In bivariate analyses, transit service was not associated with ride-hailing trip ends. But after controlling for neighborhood socioeconomic status, transit dependency, population density, and employment density, we found fewer ride-hailing trips in neighborhoods where bus service dominated and significantly more ride-hailing trips where rail service was prevalent. Patterns were slightly different for overnight weekend ride-hailing pick-ups, where higher transit density predicted a greater number of trips in nearby tracts. Additional research and policy is needed to ensure that ride-hailing services provide travel options to those who need them the most and fill transit gaps in low-income communities when options to increase service are limited.


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