nities and the individuals who live in them, and may be especially beneficial in poor neighborhoods. In contrast, a social isolation perspective proposes that neighborhood stability has negative effects on residents'psychological well-being in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. This analysis of multilevel data-data in which survey information from a representative sample of Illinois residents is linked to census-tract information about poverty and stability in their neighborhoodsupports a social isolation perspective. In affluent neighborhoods, stability is associated with low levels of distress; under conditions of poverty the opposite is true. In part this occurs because residents of poor, stable neighborhoods face high levels of disorder in their neighborhoods. Stability does not reduce perceived disorder under conditions of poverty, as it does in more affluent neighborhoods, which leaves residents feeling powerless to leave a dangerous place. Finally, the negative effects of poor, stable neighborhoods on residents'psychological well-being do not stem from a lack of social ties among neighbors. N EIGHBORHOOD stability traditionally has been heralded as a boon to quality of life, but stability's influence may not always be positive. We extend the research on neighborhood stability by showing how the benefits of stability for individual psychological well-being depend on the local economic context. We make three contributions. First, we directly assess residents' psychological distress, measured as depression and anxiety. We depart from the tradition of considering crime as the ultimate outcome and instead examine the effects of neighborhood stability and poverty on the psychological well-being of residents. Second, we examine the effects of residential stability across different types of neighborhoods because the effect of neighborhood stability on psychological well-being may depend on economic context. Third, we investigate whether physical and social disorder in the neighborhood mediates the joint effect of neighborhood stability and poverty on distress because disorder influences residents' perceptions that they are powerless to leave a threatening and dangerous environment.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2657384.pdf

The contingent meaning of neighborhood stability for residents' psychological well-being

Using victimization data from 57 neighborhoods, this article examines the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and rates of violent crime and burglary. We argue that Shaw and McKay's social disorganization theory provides a meaningful point of departure for examining the uneven distribution of criminal victimization across social units. Measures of three central theoretical elements in Shaw and McKay's social disorganization perspective (poverty, residential mobility, and racial heterogeneity), and variables from the subculture of violence, social control, and opportunity perspectives are included in this research. Results indicate that core components of Shaw and McKay's theory are important in explaining neighborhood victimization rates, although their influence is more conditional than direct and varies by type of crime. Evidence also emerges that supports social control models of aggregate criminal activity. Additionally, we examine whether parameters of macromodels of criminal activity v...

Social Structure and Criminal Victimization

Using the 1960 Census of Population one-in-a-thousand sample, this study investigates determinants of geographic mobility among professional, technical, and kindred workers. Multiple regression analysis reveals that age accounts for most of the explained variance in mobility, followed by income, education, regional location, sex, family size, and marital status. Additional variables—class of worker, race, nativity, professional type, size of place and industry—add no significant increments to explained variance.

/pdf/sources-of-geographic-mobility-among-professional-workers-a-1sbkw84ls8.pdf

Sources of geographic mobility among professional workers: A multivariate analysis.

A structural model portraying the processes through which geographic mobility presumably affects individual criminal behavior is derived by amalgamating twelve theoretical statements from the literature. The model is then estimated using self-report data from a three-state survey, focusing on four self-projected offenses and change in residence over a ten-year period. The results show no direct influences of mobility but they do indicate the presence of a fairly general indirect effect through the intervening linkage of moral commitment to conventional norms. Thus, in general, mobility appears to reduce moral commitments that, in turn, increase the chances of offense. Yet the discovery of an inverse effect of mobility on the offense of marijuana smoking suggests that the effects of mobility may vary somewhat by type of offense under consideration. We conclude that the mobility/crime linkage merits further attention, especially in an effort to build more specific and conditional theory.

Geographic Mobility and Criminal Behavior

The spatial analysis of crime and delinquency

In three research projects on intra-urban mobility in Omaha over a period of some twenty years, the secular trends and the relation of mobility to other social phenomena in the city were investigated. The highest rate of horizontal mobility was found in the order, deteriorated areas; but, as the population movel toward the fringe of the city, more families moved into dwellings which they owned, which means an incrreasing rate of vertical mobility. This condition contributed to greater stability, less child dependency, fewer cases of old age relief, and less habitual juvenile delinquency. On the other hand, high rates of horizontal mobility were found in areas of instability, unrest, dependency, and crime.

T. Earl Sullenger

Papers

The Social Significance of Mobility: An Omaha Study