In his post, “The Ghetto Is Public Policy,” Ta-Nehisi Coates, national correspondent at The Atlantic states, “The wealth gap is not a mistake. It is the logical outcome of policy and democratic will.” For decades, federal leaders invested in the stability of affluent, predominantly white communities, while giving localities the autonomy to neglect and exclude low-income communities and communities of color. Such practices included redlining, beginning in the 1930s, where banks were allowed to exclude African American communities from receiving home loans. Or following World War II, when many metropolitan regions saw highways rammed through many low-income, mostly African American communities, displacing thousands of residents and small businesses and ripping apart the fabric of long established neighborhoods. And then there was the federal government’s “Urban Renewal” effort of the 1950s and 1960s, which gave local governments and private developers free rein to develop downtowns and displace residents with no clear policy for relocation. At best, residents were moved to public housing located in already segregated, poor neighborhoods with few resources.
Today, concentrated poverty persists, with many communities facing inferior housing, poor health outcomes, failing schools, inadequate public infrastructure, and few employment opportunities. A growing body of research shows that being raised in such high-poverty communities undermines the long-term life chances of children. For example, poverty has been shown to genetically age children, and living in communities exposed to violence impairs cognitive ability. Even when income is held constant, families living in areas of concentrated poverty are more likely to struggle to meet basic needs than their counterparts living in more affluent areas.
However, it is important to note that low-income people are not the only residents of high-poverty neighborhoods. According to research by Professor Patrick Sharkey of New York University, the average African American family making $100,000 a year lives in a more disadvantaged neighborhood than the average white family making $30,000 a year, revealing how past social policies continue to affect neighborhood choice. Sharkey explains that the same, mostly African American families have lived in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods over long periods of time and over multiple generations, limiting access to better opportunities. “Neighborhood poverty experienced a generation ago doesn’t disappear. It doesn’t become inconsequential. It lingers on to affect the next generation,” he explained.
It is clear that the federal government has a role to play in undoing the effects of past policies that contributed to these outcomes. Further, as research shows that income inequality and social mobility place a downward drag on national prosperity, the federal government has a vested interest in ensuring that all communities connect people with the opportunities critical to helping them succeed.
Federal and local efforts must move away from short-term investments, such as relocating a fraction of families to more prosperous communities, towards transforming communities in order to alter their trajectories. “When I’m asking for durable urban policy, I’m not asking for a unique commitment to low-income, nonwhite communities. I’m proposing that we extend the commitment and the massive investments that have been made in affluent, predominantly white communities and extend them to…communities across the country,” Sharkey explained.
This is why place-based strategies, such as the Promise Zones initiative, are so important. Such strategies involve policies and practices that take into account how a community—both the built environment and the social and economic opportunities available—impacts its residents. The intersection of place with poverty comes with unique challenges that require place-based strategies to complement our national investments to cut poverty and create greater economic opportunity.
The Promise Zones initiative is designed to revitalize high-poverty communities through comprehensive, evidence-based strategies and help local leaders navigate federal funding. Promise Zones designees receive priority access to federal resources to support job creation, increase economic security, expand educational opportunities, increase access to quality, affordable housing, and improve public safety. Equally important, the initiative pulls together lessons from the administration’s previous efforts to improve struggling communities and is serving as an opportunity to rethink how the federal government can be a more effective partner to communities facing barriers to upward mobility.
The enduring effects of concentrated poverty require long-term, comprehensive strategies that will be experienced across generations. The Promise Zones initiative has the potential to serve this role and finally extend the benefits of stable communities to all people.