Urban Institute

About: Urban Institute is a nonprofit organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Medicaid & Population. The organization has 927 authors who have published 2330 publications receiving 86426 citations.

Health care for undocumented migrants: European approaches.

Abstract: European countries have smaller shares of undocumented migrants than does the United States, but these individuals have substantial needs for medical care and present difficult policy challenges even in countries with universal health insurance systems. Recent European studies show that policies in most countries provide for no more than emergency services for undocumented migrants. Smaller numbers of countries provide more services or allow undocumented migrants who meet certain requirements access to the same range of services as nationals. These experiences show it is possible to improve access to care for undoc­umented migrants. Strategies vary along three dimensions: (1) focusing on segments of the population, like children or pregnant women; (2) focusing on types of services, like preventive services or treatment of infectious diseases; or (3) using specific funding policies, like allowing undocumented migrants to purchase insurance.

Religious Versus Secular Human Service Organizations: Implications for Public Policy

Abstract: Objective. Tied to the notion that faith-related organizations provide a fresh alternative to secular social service nonprofits, the Bush Administration has proposed several controversial initiatives to increase the involvement of faith-based groups in addressing poverty in the United States. However, there is little empirical evidence on how these religious organizations raise or expend their resources or on how they differ from secular providers. Methods. Using descriptive and multivariate statistics, this article aims to add clarity to the debate over faith-based involvement in social service provision by examining the organizational and financial characteristics of more than 2,000 large, religious and secular human service providers. Results. The chief finding is that while faith-related and secular human services group have nearly identical expenditure patterns, they rely on different types of revenue to fund their services. Faith-based groups are significantly more likely than secular non-profits to depend on donor contributions, while secular groups are substantially more inclined to rely on government grants and contracts. Conclusions. Despite the strong fiscal health of faith-related providers, their heavy dependence on donor contributions raises important questions regarding the utility of faith-based policy initiatives.

Measuring the impact of Community Development Block Grant spending on urban neighborhoods

Abstract: Regression analysis of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) spending in 17 large cities reveals strong statistical associations between spending from 1994 to 1996 and changes in three indicators of neighborhood conditions: the home purchase mortgage approval rate, the median amount of the home purchase loans originated, and the number of businesses. However, there is no consistent association between spending and indicators of subsequent neighborhood change unless CDBG spending is sufficiently spatially targeted that it exceeds a threshold of the sample mean expenditure and is measured relative to the number of poor residents. In addition, associations vary according to neighborhood trajectories before investment and changes in the local economy. Nevertheless, even in the least hospitable contexts—highly concentrated neighborhood poverty, preexisting declines in home values, weak city job growth—our estimates are consistent with the hypothesis that above‐threshold CDBG spending produces signi...

Research and interventions to reduce domestic violence revictimization

Abstract: Despite decades of research on domestic violence, considerable challenges must be addressed to develop sound, theoretically and empirically based interventions for reducing domestic violence revictimization. Many basic and applied research issues remain unaddressed by existing studies, and evaluations frequently do not sufficiently highlight their limitations or program or policy implications. Nonetheless, progress has been made, and practitioners and policy makers increasingly have a wide range of promising interventions from which to select. This article reviews research on domestic violence and focuses particular attention on interventions aimed at reducing revictimization among individuals known to have been abused. It also provides a conceptual framework for practitioners and policy makers to situate existing evaluation research and highlights the need for better data to understand and assess efforts to reduce domestic violence revictimization. The author concludes by discussing directions for future research and recommendations for practice and policy.

Urban Operating Systems: Diagramming the City

Abstract: A set of software/hardware packages developed by IT companies for the urban market is transforming the way in which cities are imagined and configured. These urban operating systems (Urban OS) embody important presumptions about what constitutes appropriate knowledge and forms of decision making, pointing to how novel forms of ‘smart' or ‘computational' urbanism may govern urban life. Arguing that an analysis of the interface between the urban and IT requires a broader historical and theoretical perspective, the article traces the ways in which the city has been diagrammed as a space of power since the nineteenth century and highlights the antecedents of Urban OS present across different domains of life—particularly in military and corporate enterprises. Relaying the urban as an efficient logistical enterprise, and operating as a piloting device (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987), the Urban OS appears as an emerging urban diagram introducing an informational diagrammatic of control. We focus on five archetypal framings of how Urban OS envision the city, illustrating how a new corporate rationality of control based on functional simplification and heterogeneous reintegration seeks to take hold in the city (via re-engineering, agility, modularity, flexibility and configurability).