In developing countries, rapid industrialization without environmental controls has resulted in heavy metal contamination of communities. We hypothesized that residential neighborhoods located near ore industries in three northern Mexican cities would be heavily polluted with multiple contaminants (arsenic, cadmium, and lead) and that these sites would be point sources for the heavy metals. To ...

Using data compiled from concentrated residential urban revitalization programs implemented in Richmond, Virginia, between 1999 and 2004, we study residential externalities. We estimate that housing externalities decrease by half approximately every 1,000 feet. On average, land prices in neighborhoods targeted for revitalization rose by 2–5 percent at an annual rate above those in a control nei...

Data from the New York City Moving to Opportunity 3-year follow-up were used to examine neighborhood and gender effects on adolescents’ family processes. Low-income, minority families in public housing in highpoverty neighborhoods were assigned randomly to (a) move to private housing in low-poverty neighborhoods only, (b) move to private housing in neighborhoods of their choice, or (c) stay in ...

The spatial division of cities into residential zones is a universal feature of urban life from the earliest cities to the present. I propose a two-level classification of such zones that archaeologists can use to analyze preindustrial cities. Neighborhoods are small areas of intensive face-to-face social interaction, whereas districts are larger areas that serve as administrative units within ...

This study uses the unique design of the Gautreaux residential mobility program to estimate the long-run impacts of placement neighborhood conditions on the AFDC receipt (N = 793) and employment levels (N = 1258) of low-income Black women. We find that women initially placed in neighborhoods with few Black residents and moderate to high neighborhood resources experienced significantly more time...

Many urban communities in the United States faced deteriorating physical infrastructure and social environment in the second half of the 20 century. To restore such inner city neighborhoods, many neighborhoods have adopted historic preservation as a means to both aesthetically and fiscally improve the condition. This paper studies a historic district in the Tree Streets neighborhood, Johnson Ci...

This study presents a joint model system of residential location and activity time-use choices that considers a comprehensive set of activity-travel environment (ATE) variables, as well as sociodemographic variables, as determinants of individual weekday activity time-use choices. The model system takes the form of a joint mixed Multinomial Logit–Multiple DiscreteContinuous Extreme Value (MNL–M...

Men who have sex with men (MSM) accounted for 61% of new HIV diagnoses in the United States in 2010. Recent analyses indicate that socio-structural factors are important correlates of HIV infection. NYCM2M was a cross-sectional study designed to identify neighborhood-level characteristics within the urban environment that influence sexual risk behaviors, substance use and depression among MSM l...

Burchfield, K. B. and E. Silver (2013). "Collective Efficacy and Crime in Los Angeles Neighborhoods: Implications for the Latino Paradox* Collective Efficacy and Crime in Los Angeles Neighborhoods: Implications for the Latino Paradox." Sociological Inquiry 83(1): 154-176.  The authors use data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Study (LAFANS) to examine the degree to which social tie...

This study re-analyzed data on adolescent health outcomes (N = 1780; M age = 15.15, SD = 2.30) from a 5-year evaluation of the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) Program. The MTO program is a randomized experiment conducted in five cities in the United States (Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York) in which low-income families living in public housing in 'high-poverty' neighborhoods wer...