Patrick Sharkey’s “Stuck in Place” brings to light the issues caused by neighborhood inequality and intergenerational disadvantage amongst poor families. He describes the ghetto as inherited, explaining that many of the same families end up living in poor neighborhoods generation after generation. Sharkey’s description of the disadvantage some people face highlights the long-term effects of the segregation and unintentionally discriminatory acts that we discussed in class. Even with the 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Acts, which attempted to reduce residential segregation, the inequalities created by previous government policies and biases against certain races in the housing market set a cycle of disadvantage into motion that will take much longer to stop. The cumulative and multigenerational effects of living in poverty are not negated when the person moves out of poverty or when more money is given to a poor neighborhood. The problem of disadvantage is not just a physical lack of opportunity, but a deeply ingrained societal problem. 

In the disadvantaged neighborhoods Sharkey discusses, children whose parents also lived in poorer neighborhoods have lower average test scores, more anxiety, and lower educational aspirations. The impact of a highly concentrated group of people with similar values and access to resources creates a culture where people view their disadvantage as normal. Therefore, they might not attempt to improve their status by accessing more resources or working to get a better education. This ties into the class discussion on social isolation and concentration effects, explaining why children of disadvantaged parents are much more likely to be disadvantaged themselves. If nobody in a children’s family, friend group, or neighborhood went to college, the child likely did not grow up with high educational expectations or aspirations. Not only are they more likely to have lower test scores — making it harder to get into college — but they grew up in a household where going to college might not have been the standard people were striving towards.  

In response to my question about the potential solutions to this cycle of inequality, a student suggested teaching lower-class people the skills to navigate institutions such as banks and schools. I agree that local governments should introduce greater education about life skills in an attempt to create a stable, long-term integration of people from different neighborhoods. This approach would ensure that people from all economic backgrounds have the skills needed to navigate various beneficial societal institutions. As Sharkey wrote, a large factor contributing to the longevity of neighborhood disadvantage is that people lack the opportunity for success; a problem which teaching people the skills to navigate beneficial institutions would help to reduce. Although this is not the only solution to urban inequality and neighborhood disadvantage, creating more equal opportunities for all people through increased education would be a step in the right direction.   

Furthermore, increasing the accessibility of local institutions to the lower class could help to reduce some of the negative associations that people have with African-Americans from poor neighborhoods. Elijah Anderson claims that people transfer notions commonly associated with the ghetto — violence, poverty, and drugs — onto black people themselves, rather than just onto residents of certain neighborhoods. This idea of the ‘iconic ghetto’ follows black people around, regardless of where they live. Increasing people’s access to institutions and helping poorer, more disadvantaged people learn the skills needed to use the same resources as the rest of society might begin to break this concept of the iconic ghetto. If everyone is equipped with a similar set of skills to navigate different institutions, there will be less disparity of opportunity amongst socioeconomic classes. This would not stop the cycle of inequality that many people in society face today, but it would provide everyone with the same baseline set of knowledge about how to take out loans, succeed in school, and participate in governmental affairs. This small step can begin the process of helping people from all socioeconomic and neighborhood backgrounds to gain equality of opportunity.