Adolescents in Public Housing: Addressing Psychological and Behavioral Health

VON E. NEBBITT

THE AMERICAN PROJECT

PUBLIC HOUSING IS A FEDERAL program started by the U.S. Housing Act of 1937, which provided public financing for low-cost public housing. Initially, public housing was developed to meet the housing needs of white middle-class families affected by the Great Depression; however, it quickly transitioned into housing for poor racial minorities (Atlas & Dreier 1992; Bauman 1987; Marcuse 1995; Goetz 2003). The transition was due, in part, to the Housing Act of 1949 and a national trend toward urban renewal. After the passage of the Housing Act of 1949, approximately 90 percent of public housing subsidized by the U.S. Housing Authority and the Public Works Administration was segregated by race (Stoloff 2004). In the three decades following World War II, approximately 700,000 units of public housing were constructed along existing racial lines (Bauman 1987; Marcuse 1995; Goetz 2003). This contributed to the legacy of racial segregation that currently exists in many public housing developments (Atlas & Dreier 1992; Turner, Popkin, & Rawlings 2009). As a result of this transition, urban public housing fell out of political favor, leading to design flaws, inadequate funding, poor maintenance, and further isolation of poor racial minorities (Atlas & Dreier 1992).

Shortly after its inception, public housing captured national attention due to the constellation of social problems that coalesced in many public housing developments across the country. Legislators (Moynihan 1965) postulated that life in public housing contributed to a culture of poverty. Researchers argued that life in public housing is like living “behind ghetto walls” (Rainwater 1970), while architects (Newman 1972) emphasized the lack of defensible space for the social problems in urban public housing. Several studies (DuRant, Pendergrast, & Cadenhead 1994; Epstein et al. 1999; Li, Stanton, & Feigelman 1999; Williams et al. 1998) succeeded these initial investigations. The preponderance of this evidence suggested that public housing was a failure, creating environments marked by concentrated poverty and leaving an array of social problems in its wake (Goetz 2003).

In an attempt to rectify what was deemed a failed housing policy (Goetz 2003; Turner, Popkin, & Rawlings 2009), the United States launched an ambitious $5 billion strategy called Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere VI (HOPE VI; Popkin 2007). The goal of HOPE VI was to transform (i.e., demolish and rebuild) distressed public housing developments in many large U.S. cities (Popkin 2007). Transformation efforts, however, only affected a small percentage of public housing in select large cities (Stoloff 2004). In accordance with Congressional guidelines, only 6 percent of the 1.5 million public housing units were eligible for redevelopment (Popkin et al. 2004). Popkin (2007:2) argued:

It is also clear that the transformation effort has not yet achieved its full potential to improve the lives of poor, minority families. There is evidence that original residents … have ended up in other troubled public housing developments or been “lost” during the relocation process.

Today, local housing authorities serve nearly a million residents in developments that were not targeted by HOPE VI. These families are still profoundly poor and highly segregated (Holin et al. 2003; Popkin 2007). It is important to note that residents who benefited most from HOPE VI were generally newer residents with higher incomes and, in some cases, were white (Popkin 2007). The racial composition of residents who endured—and continue to endure—many of the deplorable conditions in urban public housing unaffected by HOPE VI, for the most part, has not changed.

PURPOSE OF THE BOOK

The purpose of this book is to contribute to knowledge on African American youth living in public housing developments that were not targeted by HOPE VI. The central goal of the book is to support the development of a theoretical model to validate the interplay that occurs between the various domains of influence within a complex environment (i.e., traditional public housing neighborhoods). The book achieves this goal by (1) introducing a parsimonious model of development (i.e., the Integrated Model on Adolescent Development in Public Housing Neighborhoods; see figure 3.1 for a schematic) that focuses on minority youth living in urban public neighborhoods; and (2) empirically testing select sections of the model using cross-sectional data collected from 898 African American youth living in public housing located in four large U.S. cities (i.e., New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis).

Data used in this book were collected as part of a multisite, multicity study to assess whether African American adolescents living in public housing express mental health symptoms and engage in health-risk behaviors at a rate similar to or different from youth who do not live in public housing. These data were collected primarily from African American youth (i.e., more than 90 percent of the sample) living in public housing in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeastern United States. Recruitment and data collection occurred from spring 2006 until summer 2008. The study used a quasi–community-based participatory research design, with the goal of increasing participation from a population that has been underrepresented in research (i.e., African American youth living in public housing). Participants were recruited using respondent-driven sampling (Salganik & Heckathorn 2004); recruitment efforts relied heavily on young adult resident leaders within each public housing community (i.e., research site). These resident leaders also assisted with other aspects of the study during data collection. The contributing authors are aware of the research design as well as the limitations in the data. The chapters in part 2 of this volume are based on these data. A complete description of the research design, methods, and sample characteristics are detailed in chapter 4.

This volume makes three unique contributions to knowledge on African American youth living in public housing neighborhoods. First, it advances knowledge on how proximal factors on the community, family, and peer levels promote or inhibit psychological functioning and health behavior in African American youth. Second, it contributes to the scarce theoretical literature on how the social ecology in public housing is linked to African American adolescents’ health behavior and psychological functioning. Finally, it adds to evidence upon which preventative interventions may be developed to target minority youth living in urban public housing neighborhoods.

Furthermore, this book makes a practical addition to the social science and community practice (e.g., social work, public health, nonspecialty mental health providers) knowledge bases. It is has been long documented (Rainwater 1970; Moynihan 1965) that public housing neighborhoods expose children and youth to a range of adverse childhood experiences (e.g., witnessing and victimization by violence, exposure to delinquent peers, access to drugs, household conflict). Still, researchers often enter these environments assuming that public housing is simply a backdrop against which the day-to-day lives of residents are played out. However, it has been documented that the factor structure of depression in African American adolescents living in public housing differs from national samples of African American youth (Nebbitt, Mapson, & Robinson 2011). Also, practitioners often enter public housing environments with little or no baseline information on the prevalence of mental health symptoms and health-risk behaviors. This volume is a first step (of what I hope becomes many steps) to fill these gaps in knowledge and practice.

To help advance the knowledge base on African American youth living in urban public housing, this book introduces an Integrated Model on Adolescent Development in Public Housing Neighborhoods. The integrated model offers a paradigm shift from solely focusing on the shortcomings of households in public housing to examining the population’s capacities and strengths. For example, this integrated model moves beyond simply examining the role that family and parents play in mitigating neighborhood-level risk factors to examining how perceived community cohesion promotes a greater sense of efficacy, mental health, and health behavior.

Notwithstanding the book’s contributions, generalizing the findings beyond the sample (i.e., African American youth) and regions (i.e., Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast) of the research sites should be done with caution. It is also important to note that the racial composition of residents in public housing differs significantly across regions of the United States. African American families are highly represented in the South, the Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Northeast, whereas Latino and immigrant families are highly represented in the Mountain region, the Southwest, and the West Coast. In addition to compositional differences across regions, youths’ experiences of living in public housing will likely differ. For example, the experience of an African American youth living in public housing in Chicago may differ significantly from the experiences of immigrant or refugee youth living in public housing in Seattle or Latino youth living in Los Angeles.

Still, this book is the first published volume on African American youth living in public housing based on data collected in multiple housing developments across multiple large U.S. cities. This volume also represents a first attempt at developing and empirically testing sections of a parsimonious model of adolescents’ expression of mental symptoms and health-risk behavior within the context of public housing.

PORTRAIT OF PUBLIC HOUSING RESIDENTS

This section provides a portrayal of public housing residents and locations based on a 1994 report (the last comprehensive report on the racial composition and locations of public housing) (Goaring, Kamely, & Richards 1994) and data from the Public and Indian Housing Information Center (PIC, 2013).

In 1994, there were slightly more than 1.2 million public housing units located in 14,814 public housing development across the United States (Goaring, Kamely, & Richards 1994). Public housing households represented less than 5 percent of all households in an average census’s tract. In census tracts where public housing developments were represented, public housing households composed 23 percent of all households in these census tracts; however, African Americans households represented 51 percent of the families in public housing developments in these census tracts (Goaring, Kamely, & Richards 1994). In census tracts with 70 percent African Americans, this population represented 93 percent of the residents in public housing. Latino and white public housing residents tended to be underrepresented in African American census tracts. Only 12 percent of Latino and 1 percent of white residents lived in predominately African American housing developments. Furthermore, white and Latino families typically lived in public housing located developments in census tracts where 30 percent or fewer of the residents live below the official poverty line, whereas African American families typically lived in public housing developments located in census tracts where 30 percent or more of the residents live above the official poverty line. Public housing represented 53 percent of the households in high-poverty census tracts and only 2 percent of the households in low-poverty census tracts (Goaring, Kamely, & Richards 1994). To my knowledge, these findings have not been updated to account for the demolition or disposition of approximately 170,000 units since 1995 or to adjust for the major urban migration by higher income groups since the 2000 census (Jargowsky 2003).

Data from the PIC (2013) provide a more current picture of public housing residents. It is important to note that the PIC does not provide information on the location of public housing or on concentration of poverty, as the Goaring, Kamely, and Richards (1994) report provided. However, HOPE VI communities were built on the exact geographical location as the demolished public housing development that they replaced; therefore, it is unlikely that the geographical areas where public housing developments are located have changed.

A decade after HOPE VI, there were still 1.17 million public housing units in the United States (PIC 2013). Sixty percent of public housing units were in central cities, 19 percent were in suburbs, and 21 percent were in rural and nonmetropolitan areas. Over half of the units are designated as family developments (i.e., nonelderly and nondisabled housing developments). There were approximately 850,000 children in public housing, representing 41 percent of the residents. There were 2.2 family members per household. Most of the residents in public housing (95 percent) had incomes between 30 and 80 percent less than the national median annual income. In 2013, residents had an average income of $13,661. Slightly less than half of the residents were African American and 24 percent were Latino (PIC 2013). Despite massive transformation efforts driven by HOPE VI, many residents continued to endure challenging conditions in urban public housing. The next section explores the future of non–HOPE VI public housing developments.

THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC HOUSING

Transformations to urban public housing have captured national attention. The twenty-first century has seen tens of thousands of public housing developments bulldozed or imploded to clear the way for mixed-income communities (Goetz 2003; Vale 2002). Social commentators and mass media have touted the success of mixed-income communities, juxtaposing photos of high-rise and barrack-style poverty-stricken housing developments against manicured, colorful mixed-income communities. However, the lion’s share of redevelopment targeted distressed high-rise housing developments in select large cities, which only represents approximately 27 percent of the country’s public housing stock (Stoloff 2004). Indeed, high-rise public housing developments in select cities (e.g., Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore) had reached such levels of distress that demolition seemed a logical solution. Still, many of the problems for which public housing has become infamous are confined to large family developments in select large cities, such as Pruitt–Igoe in St. Louis and Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago (Stoloff 2004). These select failures, however, do not equate to a failed housing policy, as some have suggested (Goetz 2003).

Despite the challenges, most public housing developments provide decent and affordable housing to low-income residents in cities where shelter in safe neighborhoods is unaffordable (Atlas & Dreier 1992). First Houses on New York City’s Lower East Side and Yesler Terrace near downtown Seattle are good examples. Still, with few exceptions, social commentators and legislators supported the idea that the best solution to the “American Project” was demolition (Bennett, Smith, & Wright 2006; Goetz 2003; Vale 2002). Accordingly, the demolition of public housing moved forward practically unfettered.

Since the beginning of efforts to transform public housing, there is sufficient evidence on the impact of HOPE VI to allow an initial assessment. Preliminary assessments suggest that HOPE VI has had real benefits for public housing stock. These initiatives have been less beneficial to low-income poor minorities in location-based public housing (Popkin 2008). Existing evidence suggests that residents affected by transformation efforts have remained in public housing or live in similar neighborhood conditions (e.g., high levels of violence, segregation, poverty; Popkin 2008).

During the 1990s, it would have been extremely difficult to deny that severely distressed public housing developments in several cities were in a calamitous state and in need of national intervention. Since then, however, the results of HOPE VI, although promising, have the potential to derail a discussion on the health and well-being of the millions of families still living in non–HOPE VI public housing developments. Transformations to public housing may also bring into question the need for ongoing research within public housing. Indeed, transformations to public housing will raise several questions, including the following: Is traditional public housing simply a relic from our past? Will public housing developments be transformed into communities no longer recognizable as public housing? Will youth living in public housing experience less adverse childhood experiences? Three aspects of in HOPE VI suggest otherwise.

First, in accordance with Congressional guidelines, only 6 percent of the 1.5 million public housing units were eligible for HOPE VI funding (Popkin et al. 2004). Second, most redevelopment efforts were directed at high-rise development in large cities (Stoloff 2004), despite the fact that residents in low-rise developments expressed the greatest exposure to community violence and reported the greatest fear of community violence (Popkin et al. 2002). Third, of the 21,000 housing developments transformed by HOPE VI, only 11 percent of the occupants are returning tenants. Existing evidence suggests that original residents may “have ended up in other troubled public housing developments” (Popkin 2007:2). Popkin argued that “it is also clear that the transformation effort has not yet achieved its full potential to improve the lives of poor, minority families” (2007:2).

The facts above indicate a need for an ongoing program of research of the health and well-being of children in public housing. Also, there are several important questions about life in public housing that research has not fully explored, such as how the experience of living in public housing contributes to an adolescent’s well-being or maladjustment. There is also a dearth of evidence to guide the understanding of how families in public housing adapt to these environments and how public housing promotes or inhibits adolescent development. Investigating such questions remains important for the millions of families who remain in non–HOPE VI public housing developments, as 70 percent of the U.S. public housing stock will be unaffected by redevelopment.

The idea that public housing “projects” are dangerous places to raise children is prominent in the professional literature (DuRant, Pendergrast, & Cadenhead 1994; Epstein et al. 1999; Li, Stanton, & Feigelman 1999; Moynihan 1965; Newman 1972; Rainwater 1970). Despite inconsistent and contradictory evidence, all public housing locations are treated as monolithically dangerous places. Particularly salient in the popular imagination is the iconic welfare queen and the emblematic drug lord. As the future of urban public housing is debated, there is a need to move beyond prevailing perceptions of public housing. The future discussion of public housing must be based on empirical evidence and a comprehensive understanding of proximal processes that influence adolescents’ health. This new perspective will require a paradigm shift from deficits to strengths and from shortcomings to capacities. It is important that the national discussion on public housing is not overshadowed by transformation efforts at the expense of an ongoing discussion about the well-being of the hundreds of thousands of families in public housing developments not affected by HOPE VI. This volume represents an effort to keep the discussion on families in nontransformed public housing a part of the national discussion on housing for low-income urban families.

U.S. PUBLIC HOUSING: PROJECTS OR NEIGHBORHOODS?

Prior to initiating a discussion that is premised on the assumption that urban public housing developments are unique social contexts, there is a need to establish why and how public housing developments are neighborhoods in their own right. Conceptualizing public housing developments as neighborhoods is not unique to this book. Davies (2006), in Crime, Neighborhood, and Public Housing, argued that public housing projects are socioeconomically and architecturally distinct neighborhoods. Also, Vale (2002), in Reclaiming Public Housing: A Half Century of Struggle in Three Public Neighborhoods, argued that public housing developments are in fact public neighborhoods. Although arguable, public housing developments are neighborhoods in their own right. They are politically, socioeconomically, architecturally, and, in many cities, demographically distinct from their surrounding neighborhoods. Politically, local housing authorities are invested with the authority to enact legislation specifically within the context of public housing. For example, public housing is public space; therefore, public housing neighborhoods are drug-free zones, similar to drug-free zones in public schools. Consequently, if an adolescent public housing resident is arrested for smoking or possessing marijuana within public housing, his or her family may be evicted from the housing development. Socioeconomically, public housing locations are distinct neighborhoods in that residency is based on means testing, which ensures a population with incomes 50 to 80 percent below the median income for the county or metropolitan area (HUDUSER 2009).

Architecturally, public housing was designed to be distinct from the surrounding neighborhood (Davies 2006). Demographically, public housing neighborhoods in most major cities are 65 to 95 percent African American (HUDUSER 2009). In addition to these objective reasons, the stigma associated with living in “the projects” contributes to public housing developments being residential anomalies and, therefore, neighborhoods in their own right (Vale 2002).

Conceptualizing public housing developments as neighborhoods in their own right in no way insinuates that public housing communities exist in a vacuum. Quite the contrary is true. Like most neighborhoods, public housing neighborhoods are influenced by and influence their surrounding environments. Because public housing neighborhoods are mostly located within minority low-income neighborhoods, they are often the recipients of social problems that exist in their neighboring communities. On the other hand, public housing neighborhoods are often centers of poverty. Many fall prey to drug infestation, causing the public housing neighborhood to become the epicenter of social problems and violence, which in turn spill back into neighboring communities. This dynamic interplay is best explained through the concept of spatial diffusion. Morrill, Gaile, and Thrall (1988) defined spatial diffusion as the process through which changes occurring in one place result in changes in a different place. A fuller discussion of spatial diffusion is beyond the scope of this book; however, Davies (2006) and Peterson and Krivo (2010) provided detailed discussions of the spatial diffusion of crime in the books Crime, Neighborhood, and Public Housing and Divergent Social Worlds, respectively.

Contrary to common perceptions, public housing neighborhoods are not monolithic communities. Public housing neighborhoods, although similar in many characteristics (e.g., demographics, socioeconomic status [SES]), differ significantly in their ability to create social environments that facilitate or impede optimal youth development. Venkatesh (2002) outlined how these various dynamics play out in the book, American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto. Venkatesh found that very different social environments can exist not only between two public housing neighborhoods but between buildings within the same public housing neighborhood. There are several influences from the community, social services, family, peer, and individual domains that mitigate or exacerbate larger macro influences (i.e., low SES, social isolation) on adolescents’ development (e.g., their mental health symptoms, health-risk behaviors).

To better understand these proximal processes and how they influence the trajectories of adolescents living in public housing, it is useful to examine the concept of multifinality. Rogosch and Cicchetti (2004) argued that multifinality is a condition in which similar initial conditions lead to different end effects. Building on the concept of multifinality, this book assesses how the perceived social ecology of public housing influences health behavior and psychological functioning among adolescents living under similar SES and environmental conditions. Furthermore, building on previous research and knowledge of family formation within low-income urban African American communities, this book explores how extended kinship and fictive kinship networks provide social safety nets within public housing neighborhoods. Lastly, considering the near-absence of fathers in public housing developments, this book examines the role that the paternal caregiver plays in adolescents’ well-being.

RESEARCH ON YOUTH IN PUBLIC HOUSING

Given the well-established relationship between environmental factors and individual outcomes (Earls & Visher 1997; Massey & Denton 1993; Reynolds 1998; Sastry, Ghosh-Dastidar, Adams, & Pebley 2006), there is ground to speculate that living in public housing is relevant to the understanding of the psychological functioning and health behavior of young people in public housing neighborhoods. Families in public housing are amongst the nation’s most disadvantaged urban families (PIC 2013). Many live in highly segregated, poor communities often marked by multiple forms of violence and crime, exposing youth to a number of adverse childhood experiences (Goetz 2003; Duncan, Brooks-Gunn, & Klebanov 1994; DuRant, Pendergrast, & Cadenhead 1994; Turner, Popkin, & Rawlings 2009). Still, important relationships between risk and protective factors, as well as their influences on adolescents’ mental health and health-risk behaviors, have not been fully explored.

A review of empirical papers published since around 2000 indicates that research on youth in public housing has, for the most part, been based on single-site data and has focused primarily on risk factors. Few of these studies included data from multiple cities, identified protective factors, or used an ecological perspective to examine influences across domains (for exceptions, see Nebbitt 2009; Nebbitt & Lombe 2007; Nebbitt & Lambert 2009). An overview of research on youth in public housing is detailed in this section.

Using a sample of 722 sixth-grade students, DuRant et al. (2000) found that the witnessing of and victimization by community violence and multiple substance use were strongly correlated to violence perpetration. DuRant, Pendergrast, and Cadenhead (1994) also found that exposure to community violence was associated with engaging in physical fights, fighting family members in the households, and being involved in gang fights in a sample of 225 African American youth living in public housing. Bolland et al. (2001) studied a sample of 583 youth (ages 9 to 19 years) and found that hopelessness and uncertainty about the future were significantly associated with carrying weapons (e.g., knives and guns) and pulling a knife or gun on someone. Li, Stanton, and Feigelman (1999) found, in a sample of 349 youth (ages 9 to 15 years), that exposure to drug trafficking was strongly associated with exposure to other forms of community violence, delinquency, and drug use. In a sample of 355 African American youth ages 9 to 17 years, Romer and Stanton (2003) found that youth with less favorable attitudes toward sexual behavior were less likely to have initiated sexual intercourse and youth with more favorable attitudes toward condom use were more likely to use condoms consistently. Based on data received from 624 African American and Latino seventh-graders in New York, Epstein et al. (1999) found that social pressure from family and peers increased the likelihood of cigarette smoking, while unfavorable attitudes toward smoking and refusal skills lowered the odds of having smoked cigarettes. Using this sample, Williams et al. (1998) also found that social influences from adults, family members, and peers increased the likelihood of drinking alcohol, whereas unfavorable attitudes toward using alcohol decreased the likelihood of alcohol consumption.

This limited body of empirical evidence shares five salient features. First, it focuses on risk factors and deficits in youth. Second, it is based on data obtained from single sites located in single cities. Third, there is a near-absence of protective factors that may promote resilience within this population of youth. Fourth, this research does not provide any insights on how various factors across domains interact to promote or inhibit adolescents’ mental health and behaviors. Finally, this research lacks a unified framework that attempts to explicate and explain life in public housing neighborhoods.

An emerging body of research has begun to address some of these challenge areas (e.g., see Lombe et al. 2011; Nebbitt 2009; Nebbitt & Lombe 2007; Nebbitt & Lambert 2009; Nebbitt, Lombe, & Williams 2008; Nebbitt & Lombe 2010; Nebbitt et al. 2010, 2012; Yu et al. 2012). This emerging body of research on youth in public housing uses, for the most part, an ecological framework and identifies protective factors. This volume represents an extension to this emerging body of research.

LIMITATIONS IN PUBLIC HOUSING

A review of recently published books on public housing has not rectified the observed gaps in knowledge. Five volumes focus on demolishing older housing projects, retaining public housing developments (Bennett, Smith, & Wright 2006; Goetz 2003; Popkin et al. 2000; Vale 2002), or exploring the dynamics and processes within and between resident organizations and local housing authorities (Venkatesh 2002). Earlier volumes—Rainwater’s Behind Ghetto Walls (1970) and Newman’s Defensible Space (1973)—were premised on the assumption that public housing neighborhoods are bastions of social problems. This is evidenced by the absence of protective factors or an ecological framework to examine influences across various domains (e.g., neighborhood, family, parents, peers, self).

This research also has other limitations. For example, Reynolds (1998) treated public housing environments as extensions of surrounding neighborhoods. This is evidenced by the use of census tract data as proxies for neighborhood-level risk factors in public housing research (Reynolds 1998). This approach is problematic given that most public housing developments share census tracts with low-income neighborhoods and, in certain cities, the central business district (HUDUSER 2009). Few, if any, public housing developments occupy entire census tracts. This approach contributes to ecological fallacies. For a number of reasons, the physical environment within public housing neighborhoods is more than simply a spatial backdrop, an extension of the surrounding neighborhood, or a stage on which family life is lived. Public housing developments are politically, socioeconomically, and architecturally neighborhoods in their own right (Davies 2006), and living in these neighborhoods is a unique experience (Vale 2002).

Another limitation in this area of research is how peer effects are assessed. Current approaches may not reflect the realities of life in many urban public housing neighborhoods. Current approaches to estimate peer effects on antisocial behaviors are based on youths’ exposure to delinquent peers. This approach is common in delinquency research (Battin et al. 1998; Thornberry & Krohn 2003). However, given the population density in most public housing neighborhoods, coupled with the presence of gangs, it may be impossible for young people to avoid delinquent or gang-involved peers. Such approaches may underestimate the complexities of public housing neighborhoods. Within densely populated public housing neighborhoods, it is likely that negative peer effects may be moderated by a youth’s efficacious beliefs and capacity to negotiate with deviant peers. Further research is needed.

A first step in rectifying these problems in public housing research is to conceptualize public housing developments as unique neighborhoods in their own rights. Conceptualizing these communities as unique social contexts, as opposed to simply poor housing embedded in poor communities, may stimulate more intellectual efforts toward understanding human development within these neighborhoods. A second step in rectifying these limitations in public housing research is the development of a unified ecological framework. A unified ecological framework that takes into account unique aspects of public housing neighborhoods may provide future research with a common starting place as investigators attempt to explain life for families in the nation’s only public residential neighborhoods.

The volume represents an attempt to initiate these advances. Using an integrated model (outlined in chapter 3), this book explores how the larger society and policies can inhibit and promote a community’s ability to create safe environments for children. Using our integrated model, the book examines the role that social cohesion, family, parents’ behavior, and individual characteristics play in buffering the negative effects of neighborhood risk and exposure to community violence on adolescents’ symptoms and behaviors. The integrated model introduces three important concepts for understanding life in public housing.

The first concept—inorganic community—provides a context for understanding the other two concepts of trophic cascading and adultification. Inorganic communities are defined as a community in which means testing and public policy define the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the community. In our integrated model, urban public housing neighborhoods are conceptualized as inorganic communities, in that occupancy is determined by means testing, and these communities are designed and defined by public policy. The notion of looking at communities as organic or inorganic is embedded in the functionalist perspective. Conceptualizing communities as organisms assumes that the successful functioning of a community (i.e., organism) depends upon various community members (i.e., males, seniors) playing important roles in the community. As with any organism, community members are interrelated and critical to successful functioning of the community. The concept of inorganic communities may help strengthen the understanding of key factors within the unique context of public housing neighborhoods that may promote or inhibit child and adolescent development.

The second concept is trophic cascading effects. Generally speaking, trophic cascading refers to downward domination (Strong 1992). In nature, trophic cascading occurs when top feeders are removed from the ecology, which allows low-level feeders to exploit other aspects of the ecology. In nature, this normally results in devastation to ground covering and the extinction of organisms that live in the bush (Strong 1992). Building on this concept, we proposed that trophic cascading occurs in public housing when high-status community members (e.g., adult males and seniors) are not present to regulate—and in some cases, suppress—the behavior of lower-status members (e.g., children and adolescents). We also purport that when high-status members are unavailable, low-status members will occupy high-status roles in communities.

Within our integrated model, trophic cascading effects lead to the third concept: adultification. Robin Jarrett (1999, 2003) defined adultification as the downward extension of adult responsibilities to adolescents. Burton (2007) argued that adultification involves contextual, social, and developmental processes in which youth are prematurely, and often inappropriately, exposed to adult knowledge and assume extensive adult roles and responsibilities within their family networks. The concept of adultification may be helpful in understanding adolescent development within public housing communities.

The chapters in this volume explore the lives of African American youth living in urban public housing located in four large U.S. cities. They also offer insights into dynamics that the authors think are unique to public housing neighborhoods. It is the authors’ hope that this volume stimulates a discussion on the hundreds of thousands of families living in public housing neighborhoods unaffected by HOPE VI. The authors also hope that the volume provides practitioners with actionable information to help improve the lives of minority adolescents living in urban public housing.