Neighborhoods

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Distribution within Humanities and Social Sciences

Kinds of Neighborhoods

  • disadvantaged neighborhood
  • inner-city neighborhood
  • residential neighborhood
  • urban neighborhood

  • Terms modified by Neighborhoods

  • neighborhood association
  • neighborhood characteristic
  • neighborhood condition
  • neighborhood context
  • neighborhood disadvantage
  • neighborhood effects
  • neighborhood environment
  • neighborhood quality

  • Selected Abstracts


    ASSESSING NEIGHBORHOOD AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCES ON CHILDHOOD VIOLENCE IN AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN SAMPLE,

    CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2002
    ERIC A. STEWART
    The present study examines the extent to which neighborhood and social psychological influences predict childhood violence among 867 African-American youth. The results showed that neighborhood affluence was the only neighborhood-level variable to exert a significant influence on childhood violence. Furthermore, childhood violence was significantly related to social psychological influences, such as adopting a street code, associating with violent peers, parental use of violence, and quality parenting. Overall, the findings suggested that simply living in a violent neighborhood does not produce violent children, but that family, peer, and individual characteristics play a large role in predicting violence in childhood. [source]


    WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD: HOW CAN REGIONAL SCIENCE CONTRIBUTE TO THE STUDY OF NEIGHBORHOODS?,

    JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2010
    Ingrid Gould Ellen
    ABSTRACT We argue in this paper that neighborhoods are highly relevant for the types of issues at the heart of regional science. First, residential and economic activity takes place in particular locations, and particular neighborhoods. Many attributes of those neighborhood environments matter for this activity, from the physical amenities, to the quality of the public and private services received. Second, those neighborhoods vary in their placement in the larger region and this broader arrangement of neighborhoods is particularly important for location choices, commuting behavior and travel patterns. Third, sorting across these neighborhoods by race and income may well matter for educational and labor market outcomes, important components of a region's overall economic activity. For each of these areas we suggest a series of unanswered questions that would benefit from more attention. Focused on neighborhood characteristics themselves, there are important gaps in our understanding of how neighborhoods change , the causes and the consequences. In terms of the overall pattern of neighborhoods and resulting commuting patterns, this connects directly to current concerns about environmental sustainability and there is much need for research relevant to policy makers. And in terms of segregation and sorting across neighborhoods, work is needed on better spatial measures. In addition, housing market causes and consequences for local economic activity are under researched. We expand on each of these, finishing with some suggestions on how newly available data, with improved spatial identifiers, may enable regional scientists to answer some of these research questions. [source]


    EFFECTS OF ATTRACTIVENESS, OPPORTUNITY AND ACCESSIBILITY TO BURGLARS ON RESIDENTIAL BURGLARY RATES OF URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS

    CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2003
    WIM BERNASCO
    This study assesses the effects of attractiveness, opportunity and accessibility to burglars on the residential burglary rates of urban neighborhoods, combining two complementary lines of investigation that have been following separate tracks in the literature. As a complement to standard measures of attractiveness and opportunity, we introduce and specify a spatial measure of the accessibility of neighborhoods to burglars. Using data on about 25, 000 attempted and completed residential burglaries committed in the period 1996,2001 in the city of The Hague, the Netherlands, we study the variation in burglary rates across its 89 residential neighborhoods. Our results suggest that all three factors, attractiveness, opportunity and accessibility to burglars, pull burglars to their target neighborhoods. [source]


    THE ROLE OF PUBLIC SOCIAL CONTROL IN URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS: A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS OF VICTIMIZATION RISK,

    CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2001
    MARÍA B. VÉLEZ
    This study introduces public social control into multilevel victimization research by investigating its impact on household and personal victimization risk for residents across 60 urban neighborhoods. Public social control refers to the ability of neighborhoods to secure external resources necessary for the reduction of crime and victimization. I find that living in neighborhoods with high levels of public social control reduces an individual's likelihood of victimization, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Given the important role that residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods can play in securing public social control, this contingent finding suggests that disadvantaged neighborhoods can be politically viable contexts. [source]


    TEARING THE CITY DOWN: UNDERSTANDING DEMOLITION ACTIVITY IN GENTRIFYING NEIGHBORHOODS

    JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2006
    Rachel Weber
    We perform a logit analysis of address-level data for every privately initiated demolition permit issued in three Chicago community areas between 2000 and 2003. We find that smaller, older, frame buildings with less lot coverage had a greater probability of being demolished during this period. Political jurisdiction and socioeconomic factors, other than the change in Hispanic population, were less important than expected. Demolished structures were located in appreciating areas, further away from Tax Increment Financing districts. We speculate that this popular redevelopment tool has been used in areas with primarily commercial land uses on the periphery of residential neighborhoods and that rent gaps are reduced by the negative externalities associated with conflicting land uses. [source]


    An ESOL Methods Course in a Latino Neighborhood

    FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 4 2002
    Thomas C. Cooper
    ABSTRACT: This article describes a model for situating an ESOL methods course in a Spanish-speaking community. The methods course had two specific goals: (1) to organize ESOL classes for children and adults in a Latino neighborhood that serve as a practicum for university students working for an ESOL teaching endorsement and (2) to include a service-learning project in the methods course so that the university students can become acquainted with the milieu of the children growing up in a Latino community. While it is not a difficult task to place an ESOL methods course in an ethnic neighborhood, the amount of planning and organization required exceeds to some degree the preparation necessary for a traditional university course held on campus. The rewards, however, far outweigh the extra effort, because the university students benefit from gaining actual ESOL teaching experience as they learn about an ethnic neighborhood, and the community residents benefit from the collaboration between the university and their neighborhood. [source]


    The Scary World in Your Living Room and Neighborhood: Using Local Broadcast News, Neighborhood Crime Rates, and Personal Experience to Test Agenda Setting and Cultivation

    JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, Issue 3 2003
    Kimberly Gross
    This study tested 2 important theories in the history of mass communication research, agenda setting and cultivation, by comparing the effects of watching local television news with direct experience measures of crime on issue salience and fear of victimization. Direct experience was measured in 2 ways: (a) personal crime victimization or victimization of a close friend or family member, and (b) neighborhood crime rates. Using a random digit dial telephone survey of residents of the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, researchers found that local news exposure accounted for an agenda-setting effect but did not cultivate fear of being a victim of crime. By contrast, direct experience had no agenda-setting effect but did predict fear. [source]


    The World's Nicest Grown-Up: A Fantasy Theme Analysis of News Media Coverage of Fred Rogers

    JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, Issue 1 2003
    Ronald Bishop
    This article applies fantasy theme analysis (Bormann, 1972, 1976, 1982, 1983, 2000) to explain the rhetorical vision that emerges from newspaper and broadcast news coverage of American television personality Fred Rogers. For the past 3 decades, journalists have framed Rogers as a calming influence and treated him with deference and respect. Journalists have created a fantasy about Rogers that holds him up as the embodiment of television's potential, potential that can be realized only by returning to the quiet tolerance and the power of imagination at the heart of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. For reporters in this interpretive community, Rogers offers hope for those struggling to raise children. A rhetorical vision of Rogers as "the world's nicest grown-up," the "Dalai Lama of television," and "the Pied Piper of children's television" is constructed out of the fantasy themes by journalists stepping outside their usual role as objective observers. Journalists who start off skeptical of Rogers and his approach find themselves captivated by his message, and they insert this experience into their coverage of Rogers, making it a key fantasy theme. [source]


    There Goes the Neighborhood

    POLICY STUDIES JOURNAL, Issue 2 2002
    Environmental Equity, the Location of New Hazardous Waste Management Facilities
    Many research studies have examined if hazardous waste treatment, storage, or disposal facilities (TSDFs) tend to be located where people are disproportionately minority, low-income, and politically inactive. This article focuses on whether variables representing potential neighborhood activism were related to where new TSDFs located during the 1990s. My analyses demonstrated that there is no consistent, substantial evidence that the demographic characteristics of neighborhoods around new TSDFs affected their location decisions. The overall composition of these neighborhoods indicates that there are disproportionately high concentrations of minority and low-income people around these TSDFs and disproportionately fewer people who were more likely to be politically active and concerned about new TSDFs. The shew towards more minorities was overwhelmingly due, however, to a relatively small number of TSDFs in heavily populated neighborhoods with high minority proportions. [source]


    DESTINATION EFFECTS: RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY AND TRAJECTORIES OF ADOLESCENT VIOLENCE IN A STRATIFIED METROPOLIS,

    CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2010
    PATRICK SHARKEY
    Two landmark policy interventions to improve the lives of youth through neighborhood mobility,the Gautreaux program in Chicago and the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiments in five cities,have produced conflicting results and have created a puzzle with broad implications: Do residential moves between neighborhoods increase or decrease violence, or both? To address this question, we analyze data from a subsample of adolescents ages 9,12 years from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, a longitudinal study of children and their families that began in Chicago,the site of the original Gautreaux program and one of the MTO experiments. We propose a dynamic modeling strategy to separate the effects of residential moving across three waves of the study from dimensions of neighborhood change and metropolitan location. The results reveal countervailing effects of mobility on trajectories of violence; whereas neighborhood moves within Chicago lead to an increased risk of violence, moves outside the city reduce violent offending and exposure to violence. The gap in violence between movers within and outside Chicago is explained not only by the racial and economic composition of the destination neighborhoods but also by the quality of school contexts, adolescents' perceived control over their new environment, and fear. These findings highlight the need to simultaneously consider residential mobility, mechanisms of neighborhood change, and the wider geography of structural opportunity. [source]


    BETTER GUN ENFORCEMENT, LESS CRIME,

    CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 4 2005
    JENS LUDWIG
    Research Summary: Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), which for the past several years has been the major federal initiative to combat gun violence, includes several elements (such as gun locks and other efforts to reduce gun availability) that research suggests are likely to have at best modest effects on gun crime. In general, enforcement activities targeted at the "demand side" of the underground gun market currently enjoy stronger empirical support. However much of PSN's budget has been devoted to increasing the severity of punishment, such as by federaliz-ing gun cases, which seems to be less effective than targeted street-level enforcement designed to increase the probability of punishment for gun carrying or use in crime. Policy Implications: PSN and other enforcement activities could be made more effective by redirecting resources toward activities such as targeted patrols against illegal gun carrying. Given the substantial social costs of gun violence, an efficiency argument can also be made for increasing funding beyond previous levels. [source]


    American Individualisms: Child Rearing and Social Class in Three Neighborhoods.

    ETHOS, Issue 1 2010
    Adrie Kusserow.
    No abstract is available for this article. [source]


    Variations in Immigrant Incorporation in the Neighborhoods of Amsterdam

    INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2006
    JOHN R. LOGAN
    Amsterdam's immigrants of Caribbean and southern Mediterranean origin have been characterized as modestly segregated from Dutch residents, and their residential assimilation has been expected to proceed rapidly. This article tests the hypothesis of spatial assimilation using both aggregate data on levels of segregation and individual-level analyses of the people who live in ethnic minority neighborhoods. Evidence is presented of assimilation for immigrants from the former colonies of Surinam and the Antilles, but Turks and Moroccans are shown to face stronger barriers. The former groups' higher standing favors their mobility from ethnically distinct neighborhoods. There is a generational shift for Surinamese and Antilleans, while the Turks and Moroccans born in Amsterdam are as likely as the immigrant generation to settle in ethnic minority neighborhoods. [source]


    Does controlling for comorbidity matter?

    AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR, Issue 3 2010
    DSM-oriented scales, violent offending in chicago youth
    Abstract Mental health problems have long been linked to antisocial behaviors. Despite an impressive body of literature demonstrating this relationship and claims that comorbidity matters, few studies examine comorbidity using multiple distinct mental health indicators, with most studies instead adopting single or composite mental health measures. This study tested separate and comorbid effects of five DSM-oriented mental health issues on self-reported violence using a community-based sample of Chicago youths from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Moreover, it utilized both primary caregiver and youth self-reports of psychopathology across four developmental stages of childhood and adolescence. When examined separately, the results indicated affective/depressive, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity, and oppositional defiant/antisocial personality problems independently predicted violence. When considering comorbidity, however, only oppositional defiant and antisocial personality problems significantly predicted violence at any stage, regardless of informant type. Implications for future studies and policy are discussed. Aggr. Behav. 36:141,157, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


    Intimate partner violence relationship dissolution among couples with children: the counterintuitive role of "Law and Order" neighborhoods

    JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2010
    Clifton R. Emery
    This study examined the relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV) relationship dissolution and neighborhood concentrated disadvantage, ethnic heterogeneity, residential instability, collective efficacy, and legal cynicism. Data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) Longitudinal survey were used to identify 658 cases of IPV in Wave 1. A generalized boosting model (GBM) was used to determine the best proximal predictors of relationship dissolution from the longitudinal data. Controlling for these predictors, logistic regression of neighborhood characteristics from the PHDCN community survey was used to predict IPV relationship dissolution in Wave 2. Counterintuitively, the authors find that neighborhoods high in legal cynicism have a greater likelihood of IPV relationship dissolution, controlling for other variables in the logistic regression model. However, analyses did not find that IPV relationship dissolution was related to neighborhood concentrated disadvantage, ethnic heterogeneity, residential instability, and collective efficacy. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


    Sharing America's Neighborhoods: The Prospects for Stable Racial Integration, by Ingrid Gould Ellen

    JOURNAL OF POLICY ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2002
    Michael A. Stoll
    [source]


    Structural Disparities of Urban Traffic in Southern California: Implications for Vehicle-Related Air Pollution Exposure in Minority and High-Poverty Neighborhoods

    JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 5 2004
    Douglas Houston
    Emerging atmospheric science and epidemiological research indicates hazardous vehicle-related pollutants (e.g., diesel exhaust) are highly concentrated near major roadways, and the prevalence of respiratory ailments and mortality are heightened in these high-traffic corridors. This article builds on recent findings that low-income and minority children in California disproportionately reside in high-traffic areas by demonstrating how the urban structure provides a critical framework for evaluating the causes, characteristics, and magnitude of traffic, particularly for disadvantaged neighborhoods. We find minority and high-poverty neighborhoods bear over two times the level of traffic density compared to the rest of the Southern California region, which may associate them with a higher risk of exposure to vehicle-related pollutants. Furthermore, these areas have older and more multifamily housing, which is associated with higher rates of indoor exposure to outdoor pollutants, including intrusion of motor vehicle exhaust. We discuss the implications of these patterns on future planning and policy strategies for mitigating the serious health consequences of exposure to vehicle-related air pollutants. [source]


    Bank Mergers and Crime: The Real and Social Effects of Credit Market Competition

    THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 2 2006
    MARK J. GARMAISE
    ABSTRACT Using a unique sample of commercial loans and mergers between large banks, we provide micro-level (within-county) evidence linking credit conditions to economic development and find a spillover effect on crime. Neighborhoods that experience more bank mergers are subject to higher interest rates, diminished local construction, lower prices, an influx of poorer households, and higher property crime in subsequent years. The elasticity of property crime with respect to merger-induced banking concentration is 0.18. We show that these results are not likely due to reverse causation, and confirm the central findings using state branching deregulation to instrument for bank competition. [source]


    Closed-form Blending of Local Symmetries

    COMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM, Issue 5 2010
    Deboshmita Ghosh
    Abstract We present a closed-form solution for the symmetrization problem, solving for the optimal deformation that reconciles a set of local bilateral symmetries. Given as input a set of point-pairs which should be symmetric, we first compute for each local neighborhood a transformation which would produce an approximate bilateral symmetry. We then solve for a single global symmetry which includes all of these local symmetries, while minimizing the deformation within each local neighborhood. Our main motivation is the symmetrization of digitized fossils, which are often deformed by a combination of compression and bending. In addition, we use the technique to symmetrize articulated models. [source]


    Texture Synthesis using Exact Neighborhood Matching

    COMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM, Issue 2 2007
    M. Sabha
    Abstract In this paper we present an elegant pixel-based texture synthesis technique that is able to generate visually pleasing results from source textures of both stochastic and structured nature. Inspired by the observation that the most common artifacts that occur when synthesizing textures are high-frequency discontinuities, our technique tries to avoid these artifacts by forcing at least one of the direct neighboring pixels in each causal neighborhood to match within a predetermined threshold. This does not only avoid deterioration of the visual quality, but also results in faster synthesis timings. We demonstrate our technique on a variety of stochastic and structured textures. [source]


    Gradient Estimation in Volume Data using 4D Linear Regression

    COMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM, Issue 3 2000
    László Neumann
    In this paper a new gradient estimation method is presented which is based on linear regression. Previous contextual shading techniques try to fit an approximate function to a set of surface points in the neighborhood of a given voxel. Therefore a system of linear equations has to be solved using the computationally expensive Gaussian elimination. In contrast, our method approximates the density function itself in a local neighborhood with a 3D regression hyperplane. This approach also leads to a system of linear equations but we will show that it can be solved with an efficient convolution. Our method provides at each voxel location the normal vector and the translation of the regression hyperplane which are considered as a gradient and a filtered density value respectively. Therefore this technique can be used for surface smoothing and gradient estimation at the same time. [source]


    DESTINATION EFFECTS: RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY AND TRAJECTORIES OF ADOLESCENT VIOLENCE IN A STRATIFIED METROPOLIS,

    CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2010
    PATRICK SHARKEY
    Two landmark policy interventions to improve the lives of youth through neighborhood mobility,the Gautreaux program in Chicago and the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiments in five cities,have produced conflicting results and have created a puzzle with broad implications: Do residential moves between neighborhoods increase or decrease violence, or both? To address this question, we analyze data from a subsample of adolescents ages 9,12 years from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, a longitudinal study of children and their families that began in Chicago,the site of the original Gautreaux program and one of the MTO experiments. We propose a dynamic modeling strategy to separate the effects of residential moving across three waves of the study from dimensions of neighborhood change and metropolitan location. The results reveal countervailing effects of mobility on trajectories of violence; whereas neighborhood moves within Chicago lead to an increased risk of violence, moves outside the city reduce violent offending and exposure to violence. The gap in violence between movers within and outside Chicago is explained not only by the racial and economic composition of the destination neighborhoods but also by the quality of school contexts, adolescents' perceived control over their new environment, and fear. These findings highlight the need to simultaneously consider residential mobility, mechanisms of neighborhood change, and the wider geography of structural opportunity. [source]


    THE ROLE OF CRIME IN HOUSING UNIT RACIAL/ETHNIC TRANSITION,

    CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 3 2010
    JOHN R. HIPP
    Previous research frequently has observed a positive cross-sectional relationship between racial/ethnic minorities and crime and generally has posited that this relationship is entirely because of the effect of minorities on neighborhood crime rates. This study posits that at least some of this relationship might be a result of the opposite effect,neighborhood crime increases the number of racial/ethnic minorities. This study employs a unique sample (the American Housing Survey neighborhood sample) focusing on housing units nested in microneighborhoods across three waves from 1985 to 1993. This format allows one to test and find that such racial/ethnic transformation occurs because of the following effects: First, White households that perceive more crime in the neighborhood or that live in microneighborhoods with more commonly perceived crime are more likely to move out of such neighborhoods. Second, Whites are significantly less likely to move into a housing unit in a microneighborhood with more commonly perceived crime. And third, African American and Latino households are more likely to move into such units. [source]


    ASSESSING NEIGHBORHOOD AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCES ON CHILDHOOD VIOLENCE IN AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN SAMPLE,

    CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2002
    ERIC A. STEWART
    The present study examines the extent to which neighborhood and social psychological influences predict childhood violence among 867 African-American youth. The results showed that neighborhood affluence was the only neighborhood-level variable to exert a significant influence on childhood violence. Furthermore, childhood violence was significantly related to social psychological influences, such as adopting a street code, associating with violent peers, parental use of violence, and quality parenting. Overall, the findings suggested that simply living in a violent neighborhood does not produce violent children, but that family, peer, and individual characteristics play a large role in predicting violence in childhood. [source]


    EXTENDING SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY: A MULTILEVEL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF VIOLENCE AMONG PERSONS WITH MENTAL ILLNESSES,

    CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2000
    ERIC SILVER
    Prior studies of violence among individuals with mental illnesses have focused almost exclusively on individual-level characteristics. In this study, I examine whether the structural correlates of neighborhood social disorganization also explain variation in violence. I use data on 270 psychiatric patients who were treated and discharged from an acute inpatient facility combined with tract-level data from the 1990 U.S. Census. I find that living in a socially disorganized neighborhood increased the probability of violence among the sample, an effect that was not mediated by self-reported social supports. Implications for future research in the areas of violence and mental illness are discussed. [source]


    INJUSTICE AND IRRATIONALITY IN CONTEMPORARY YOUTH POLICY

    CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 4 2004
    DONNA M. BISHOP
    Lionel Tate was 12 years old when he killed 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick. Tiffany had been staying at the Tate home and, by all accounts, got along well with Lionel. The two were playing at "wrestling" when Lionel decided to try out some moves that he had seen on television. He threw Tiffany across the room, inflicting fatal injuries. Despite the boy's tender age, the prosecutor transferred Lionel to criminal court on a charge of first-degree murder, an offense carrying a mandatory penalty of life without parole. The boy was given an opportunity to plead guilty to second-degree murder in return for a sentence of three years incarceration, but he rejected the offer. A jury subsequently convicted him of first-degree murder. At sentencing, the prosecution recommended leniency, which drew an angry response from the judge: If the state believed the boy did not deserve to be sent to prison for life, why hadn't it charged him with a lesser offense? Without any inquiry into the boy's cognitive, emotional, or moral maturity, the judge imposed the mandatory sentence.1 Raymond Gardner was 16 years old when he shot and killed 20-year-old Mack Robinson.2 Raymond lived in a violent urban neighborhood with his mother, who kept close watch over him. He had no prior record. He was an A student and worked part-time in a clothing store to earn money for college. On the day of the shooting, a friend came into the store to tell Raymond that Mack had a beef with him about talking to a girl, and was "looking to get him." The victim was known on the street as "Mack the Knife" because he always carried a small machete and was believed to have stabbed several people. To protect himself on the way home, Raymond took the gun kept under the counter of the shop where he worked. As he neared home, Mack and two other men approached and blocked his path. According to eyewitness testimony, Raymond began shaking, then pulled out the gun and fired. Mack ran into the street and fell. Raymond followed and fired five more shots into the victim's back as he lay dying on the ground. Raymond did not run. He just stood there crying. The prosecutor filed a motion in juvenile court to transfer Raymond on a charge of first-degree murder. The judge ordered a psychological evaluation, which addressed the boy's family and social background, medical and behavioral history, intelligence, maturity, potential for future violence and prospects for treatment. The judge subsequently denied the transfer motion. He found Raymond delinquent and committed him to a private psychiatric treatment facility.3 [source]


    THE CITY AS BARRACKS: Freetown, Monrovia, and the Organization of Violence in Postcolonial African Cities

    CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2007
    DANNY HOFFMAN
    Responding to characterizations of the postcolonial African city as a negative space, theorists of African urban processes have begun to focus on the city's unique modes of production. But what does this emphasis on productive capacity mean if "the city" is not Johannesburg or Nairobi but the West African urban warscape of Freetown or Monrovia? I explore that question by examining how the labor of male urban youth is organized according to the logic of the barracks. I suggest that these West African capitals make labor simultaneously available for use on regional battlefields or mines, logging camps, or rubber plantations. Focusing on the Brookfields Hotel in central Freetown and Monrovia's Duala neighborhood underscores how urban spaces are increasingly configured by the structure and function of the barracks: as spaces for the organization and deployment of violent labor. [source]


    Shifting Boundaries on the Professional Knowledge Landscape: When Teacher Communications Become Less Safe

    CURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 4 2004
    CHERYL J. CRAIG
    ABSTRACT Researched in the narrative-inquiry tradition, this article continues to map the terrain of teachers' professional knowledge landscapes by distinguishing knowledge communities from other teacher groups. It brings to light a bridging space in which the boundaries of teachers' landscapes may shift, and their transactions may become less safe, particularly when hotly contested matters reach narrative plateaus that are difficult to surmount. This personal experience study conducted in relationship with African-American teachers, Hope and Lorne, makes these distinctions known amid the unexamined narrative freight that pervaded their school contexts and against the backdrop of the historical African-American neighborhood within which their campuses were located. [source]


    Spatial prediction of river channel topography by kriging

    EARTH SURFACE PROCESSES AND LANDFORMS, Issue 6 2008
    Carl J. Legleiter
    Abstract Topographic information is fundamental to geomorphic inquiry, and spatial prediction of bed elevation from irregular survey data is an important component of many reach-scale studies. Kriging is a geostatistical technique for obtaining these predictions along with measures of their reliability, and this paper outlines a specialized framework intended for application to river channels. Our modular approach includes an algorithm for transforming the coordinates of data and prediction locations to a channel-centered coordinate system, several different methods of representing the trend component of topographic variation and search strategies that incorporate geomorphic information to determine which survey data are used to make a prediction at a specific location. For example, a relationship between curvature and the lateral position of maximum depth can be used to include cross-sectional asymmetry in a two-dimensional trend surface model, and topographic breaklines can be used to restrict which data are retained in a local neighborhood around each prediction location. Using survey data from a restored gravel-bed river, we demonstrate how transformation to the channel-centered coordinate system facilitates interpretation of the variogram, a statistical model of reach-scale spatial structure used in kriging, and how the choice of a trend model affects the variogram of the residuals from that trend. Similarly, we show how decomposing kriging predictions into their trend and residual components can yield useful information on channel morphology. Cross-validation analyses involving different data configurations and kriging variants indicate that kriging is quite robust and that survey density is the primary control on the accuracy of bed elevation predictions. The root mean-square error of these predictions is directly proportional to the spacing between surveyed cross-sections, even in a reconfigured channel with a relatively simple morphology; sophisticated methods of spatial prediction are no substitute for field data. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


    Flashblood: blood sharing among female injecting drug users in Tanzania

    ADDICTION, Issue 6 2010
    Sheryl A. McCurdy
    ABSTRACT Aims This study examined the association between the blood-sharing practice of ,flashblood' use and demographic factors, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status and variables associated with risky sex and drug behaviors among female injecting drug users. Flashblood is a syringe-full of blood passed from someone who has just injected heroin to someone else who injects it in lieu of heroin. Design A cross-sectional study. Setting Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Participants One hundred and sixty-nine female injecting drug users (IDUs) were recruited using purposive sampling for hard-to-reach populations. Measurements The association between flashblood use, demographic and personal characteristics and risky sex and drug use variables was analyzed by t -test and ,2 test. The association between flashblood use and residential neighborhood was mapped. Findings Flashblood users were more likely to: be married (P = 0.05), have lived in the current housing situation for a shorter time (P < 0.000), have been forced as a child to have sex by a family member (P = 0.007), inject heroin more in the last 30 days (P = 0.005), smoke marijuana at an earlier age (P = 0.04), use contaminated rinse-water (P < 0.03), pool money for drugs (P < 0.03) and share drugs (P = 0.000). Non-flashblood users were more likely to live with their parents (P = 0.003). Neighborhood flashblood use was highest near downtown and in the next two adjoining suburbs and lowest in the most distant suburbs. Conclusions These data indicate that more vulnerable women who are heavy users and living in shorter-term housing are injecting flashblood. The practice of flashblood appears to be spreading from the inner city to the suburbs. [source]