Sociology

This dissertation examines the overlap of the racial composition of a neighborhood and the existence of a dual mortgage market in which prime and subprime lenders serve different neighborhoods and borrowers. Does subprime lending represent the democratization of credit or does it serve to track people by race? This dissertation employs Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Data, U.S. Census Data and the HUD Subprime Lender List to identify subprime loans. I use Hierarchical Linear Modeling to predict the likelihood of subprime for a borrower in Philadelphia, Baltimore, San Francisco and Alameda County California. The findings demonstrate that blacks and borrowers in black neighborhoods have a higher likelihood of originating a subprime loan than whites or borrowers in white neighborhoods. Further, blacks borrowing in largely white neighborhoods have an even higher likelihood of originating a subprime loan compared to their white neighbors than do blacks borrowing in largely black neighborhoods. These findings indicate that subprime lenders not only serve different neighborhoods, but also different borrowers regardless of the neighborhood in which they are borrowing and support the existence of a dual mortgage market that is defined by race. The results from the analysis examining the consequences of subprime lending for neighborhoods indicate that after controlling for neighborhood characteristics, the positive relationship between earlier and later rates of subprime lending disappears. Also, while higher rates of subprime refinance lending were associated with a decrease in neighborhood median income in 2000, subprime lending was associated with positive changes in median house value and percent of homeowners that are black in the neighborhood, although the effects of subprime on median house value disappeared after controlling for neighborhood conditions. The study points to the continued difficulties that black borrowers and borrowers in black neighborhoods face in obtaining a fair loan. As lending practices are reformed, it is important to keep in mind the need to ensure that minority borrowers who are in the position to afford a home loan maintain the ability to get a loan, but increased care must be taken to ensure that they obtain the ability to do so on fair terms.

Temple University – Theses

Sociology

This dissertation analyzes the ways that race, class, and gender intersect in specific spatial contexts to shape access to opportunity and influence families' neighborhood decisions and experiences. I add to existing research by examining the initial processes of adjusting to new neighborhoods, focusing especially on the components of neighborhood transitions that are significant for low-income women and their children. I use in-depth qualitative interview data that was collected by Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research between 2002 and 2005 with a randomly chosen sample of adults and youth in 91 families who participated in the Gautreaux Two housing mobility program in Chicago. This analysis assesses the various factors that influenced the range of program outcomes in order to understand the social processes involved. The results of this analysis show that respondents had complicated perspectives about moving out of public housing. Most respondents were eager to move out of their baseline neighborhoods, especially for the sake of their children. However, many also cited things they missed about the neighborhood once they moved. Many faced severe obstacles in locating an eligible unit. Some of these obstacles related to the poor implementation of the Gautreaux Two program, as well as to the tight rental market in Chicago at the time. After moving through the program, many families experienced hassles with landlords, substandard unit quality, distance from kin and support networks, and difficulty in creating new social ties in placement neighborhoods resulting in social isolation and transportation and financial difficulties. Other respondents had supportive relationships with landlords, good quality units, were able to maintain ties with kin, and developed relationships with new neighbors. Participants generally valued the racial diversity of their Gautreaux neighborhoods, and many emphasized the importance of having their children live in racially diverse areas. While some respondents' children faced discrimination in their new neighborhoods and schools, this was not the primary impetus for making subsequent mobility decisions. Policy implications include the need for further pre-move housing counseling for families in mobility programs, as well as continued program assistance to build and maintain strong social networks and connections to resources.

Temple University – Theses

Geography

Inner ring suburbs are vulnerable as they face continual downward pressure amidst increasingly complex post-industrial regional dynamics. Many suburban policymakers focus on housing and commercial development when considering ways to improve their localities through the built environment; they often overlook the potential benefits of community-oriented infrastructure  – namely public libraries, neighborhood recreation facilities, and community festivals/events  – as a catalyst for encouraging economic development and neighborhood social capital. This study asks whether inner ring suburbs that offer vibrant community institutions exhibit greater levels of resilience capacity than those with less vibrant community facilities. Across the country government officials target community institutions for service reduction and/or closure in high-profile proposals to balance budgets in a tight economy. In a number of high-profile urban library budget fights, community protestors cite their library's functions as a safe environment for children after school to socialize and study, a place for public internet access and engaging programming, and as the hub of the community. Such accounts offer a glimpse into the value of community institutions in the making of place. Suburbs are competing to gain and maintain their base of residents in a highly mobile and competitive environment. Tiebout (1956) theorizes that this ease of mobility allows people to act as consumers who choose the community package of services/amenities that best meets their budget and preferences. The group of community institutions at the center of this study - public libraries, parks and recreation facilities, and community festivals/events  – are part of a wider architecture of local community infrastructure that composes a community's package of services and amenities. Public schools are an important element of that community infrastructure and the one that is most often considered to add value to suburban localities. Although public schools are unquestionably a vital community institution, this dissertation challenges the narrative that school quality is the prime suburban value-generator by measuring the value to local resilience of school quality against the vibrancy of these other kinds of community institutions that may nurture community life in different ways. This work addresses three main gaps in the literature. Work measuring the value of, and understanding the effects of, community institutions in local places is scant. Studies linking resilience capacity to a place's institutional fabric often overlook public-oriented, taxpayer-funded, place-based facilities in favor of an emphasis on non-profit organizations. A regional approach with a focus on effects in inner ring suburbs is rare. Through a mixed methods approach utilizing exploratory data analysis and qualitative content analysis on the inner ring Pennsylvania suburbs surrounding Philadelphia, this research considers the effects of community institutions on each of three previously…

Sociology

This dissertation examines the relationship between school choice and race. I examine whether the racial composition of schools influences choices and whether choices of private and public choice schools lead to greater segregation and stratification in neighborhood schools. I improve on existing research by adopting the theoretical framework used in neighborhood preferences literature to distinguish between race and race-associated reasons as motivations for avoiding racially integrating schools. This study utilizes geocoded data from the Philadelphia Area Study (PAS) and elementary school catchment maps to examine families' preferences and behaviors in the context of the actual conditions of their assigned schools. Catchment maps are integrated with Census data to determine whether choice schools have a role in white flight and segregation and stratification in neighborhood schools. The findings suggest that families are most likely to avoid neighborhood schools with high proportions of racial minorities. However, attitudes regarding racial climates are more consistent predictors of preferences than the actual racial composition of local schools. Highly segregated neighborhood schools satisfy families who desire racially homogeneous school climates, as do private schools. Families who seek diverse environments are more likely to look to charter and magnet schools. The white flight analysis shows that whites are more likely to leave schools that have modest proportions of black students, and less likely to leave schools that are already integrated. These results suggest that whites react especially strongly to schools with low levels of integration, and those who remain in the few racially balanced schools do so out of a preference for diversity or because they do not have the resources to leave. Public choice schools spur white flight in urban areas, but actually reduce flight in suburban schools. Finally, I find that choice schools do not uniformly affect the degree to which racial groups are spatially segregated from whites, and they also do not uniformly affect the degree to which racial groups attend more or less disadvantaged schools than whites. This suggests that segregation and stratification are two distinct aspects of racial inequality and should be considered separately when evaluating the effectiveness of choice programs.

Temple University – Theses

Sociology

The nonprofit arts and culture sector in the United States is uniquely situated in tension between its not-for-profit status and its growing role as a catalyst for regional economic growth. Since the mid-20th century, for metropolitan areas in particular, these organizations have become an integral part of local economies and visible symbols of regions as robust cultural centers. Their growth is increasingly viewed as a significant contribution to regional economic development. But concomitant with their newly defined roles as regional "economic engines," nonprofit arts and culture organizations also are increasingly pressed to adopt a "market orientation" with respect to both their audiences and funders. This dissertation is an investigation into how these changes have shaped the organizational structures and processes of the sector. The guiding inquiry of this research is how an increased "market orientation" in the sector is affecting organizational operations (especially expenditures), and ultimately, their constituencies. More specifically, this analysis explores the effects of marketization, defined here as dependence on earned income, agenda-oriented local corporate sponsorship, and outcomes-based foundation support, on organizational expenditures and constituency levels and composition. The present research assesses the relative utility of three organizational growth theories- resource dependency theory, institutional theory, and urban growth agenda theory-on the one hand, and the "crowding-out" hypothesis on the other hand, in accounting for the effects of increasing marketization on the size and composition of organizational constituencies. The first three frameworks suggest a connection between marketized revenues and the prioritization of organizational visibility and legitimacy, organizational professionalization, and production quality, with the end goal of constituency growth. On the other hand, the crowding-out hypothesis, though it retains a focus on revenue sources, suggests that revenue from certain sources may lead to the stagnation or even reduction of deeper organizational affiliations such as membership. Specifically, the perspective suggests that a heightened market orientation conflicts with a not-for-profit or philanthropic orientation, thereby "crowding-out" potential members. The tension between these theoretical perspectives reflects the lack of solid empirical evidence regarding the effects of economic inputs (particularly those tied to marketization) on organizational outcomes (particularly constituency composition). The current research hypothesizes that marketized revenues will ultimately lead to audience growth and expansion while simultaneously leading to stagnation or decline in membership. This study focuses on museums and performing arts institutions located within the Pennsylvania portion of the Greater Philadelphia Area. The analysis utilizes survey data on revenues, expenditures, and other organizational characteristics collected on a continuing basis through the…

Sociology

School quality and school choice are two hotly debated issues within current academic research, and the two topics are not wholly disconnected from one another. School quality literature includes debates over the most accurate definition, or definitions, of what constitutes school quality. Research addressing school choice often includes references to issues of school quality, albeit with different conclusions about the level of importance school quality plays in actual school choice decisions. In order to understand families' decisions about schools, one must recognize not only the ways in which perceptions of quality influence choices, but also that school quality and school choice are, at the same time, conceptually distinct topics. Therefore, the primary question guiding my research asks, is there a relationship between families perceptions of quality education and the school choices they ultimately make. More specifically, my research first explores how families determine what constitutes a quality school, and second, how that informs the schools they select for their children. I examine six distinct types of school choice options families may choose for their children: private, neighborhood public, magnet, charter, non-neighborhood public, or homeschooling. I investigate whether or not family assessments of quality vary along racial or socioeconomic lines and whether such variation explains some differences in families school choices by these sociodemographic characteristics. I explore families behavior during their search for their children school to determine if any racial or socioeconomic variation exists in how different families conduct this search. I also examine factors that may prevent some families from actualizing their ideals of school quality in their choices. In other words, are there obstacles to particular school choices for families from diverse social backgrounds? Data in this study comes from the Pennsylvania and Metropolitan Area Survey, collected with the Philadelphia Indicators project and Temple University Institute of Public Affairs. This survey includes households within five Pennsylvania counties; Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties as well as four counties in New Jersey: Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Salem counties. This sample includes only households including at least one school aged child (enrolled in grades kindergarten through twelfth grade) proving a sample size of N = 589 households. My findings demonstrate that significant variation by race and class exist in families perceptions of school quality, in specific school characteristics they report represent the most important indicator of school quality, in the number of school choice options families consider during the process of school choice decision making, in specific factors families report as most important for school choice decisions, and finally in the actual school choices families from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds make for their children education. Research about how…

Sociology

My research looks at the way that changing neighborhood racial composition impacts property values. Housing market reactions to changing neighborhood racial composition may be one of the primary reasons for persistently high levels of black-white residential segregation. Most of the previous research on this topic was done in the 1960's and 1970's, and there is reason to expect that the patterns may have shifted since then. By focusing on the 1990-2005 time period, my research significantly updates the age-old question of "Do property values drop when blacks move in?" The geographical focus of this project is the greater Philadelphia Metropolitan area, however, the patterns observed are likely similar to other US post-industrial cities, particularly of the Northeast and Midwest. Recent home sales transactions are used to estimate property values by tract, which in turn is used to calculate home value appreciation. Decennial census data is used to quantify the shift in neighborhood racial composition, and National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data is used to examine whether or not school district racial composition has a separate impact more significant than neighborhood racial composition. The major finding is that neighborhoods which experienced substantial racial transition had lower levels of home value appreciation than comparable predominately white neighborhoods. My results suggest that the dynamics of the housing market further exacerbate the racial inequality that is already present in the labor market and in educational attainment, which subsequently contributes to a large and persistent racial wealth gap.

Temple University – Theses

Sociology

In the U.S., wealth is unequally distributed across racial and income groups. Scholars have promoted numerous strategies to address inequalities in wealth, but evidence about their effectiveness is limited. This dissertation examines whether community-based organizations can help low-income individuals improve their credit usage and credit scores as part of a strategy to help them build their wealth. Credit histories and scores influence access to affordable loans and other forms of credit as well as employment and housing opportunities, insurance rates, and utility and rental deposits. As a result, credit plays an important role in individuals’ ability to weather financial crises, increase savings, and build wealth. Specifically, I assess the impacts and implementation of a program model that integrates financial education and counseling into employment services for low-income job seekers. The study uses a comparison group design to assess program impacts, comparing the outcomes of program participants to those of a matched group of low-income individuals who were seeking assistance from public employment agencies that did not offer financial or credit counseling. I use multivariate regression analysis to assess differences in the outcomes of program participants and comparison group members and to examine whether some organizations were more effective than others in helping participants achieve the outcomes. I also conduct a qualitative assessment of the organizational, programmatic, and contextual factors that influenced program implementation and outcomes across the five organizations in the study. I found that community-based organizations can help low-income individuals make progress in building positive credit histories. By combining financial education and counseling with employment services, the programs increased job seekers’ receipt of financial counseling relative to the comparison group, and program participants were more likely than comparison group members to have an increase in positive activity on their credit reports two years after entering the program. However, overall the program did not increase the likelihood that participants had a credit score or that they had a prime score after two years. Only program participants who had substantial recent credit activity when they entered the program were more likely than their counterparts in the comparison group to have a prime credit score after two years. Some organizations were more effective than others in helping low-income individuals achieve the targeted credit outcomes. Four of the five had impacts on whether participants had positive activity on their credit reports. One organization also had positive impacts on the likelihood of having a credit score and of having a prime score among all individuals who received financial counseling while two others had positive impacts on scores for subgroups of participants. One organization had no positive effects. The implementation analysis revealed that environmental, organizational, and…

Urban Studies

Over the last decade, the United States had experienced a boom and bust in the subprime mortgage market. The ups and downs of the subprime mortgage market became a primary factor triggering the most severe global economic recession since the Great Depression. The dissertation contributes to the literature by inquiring whether the subprime lending has exacerbated social inequity between subprime neighborhoods and other neighborhoods, through analyzing the subprime mortgage market in the Philadelphia MSA from 2000 through 2010, and focusing on two research questions: (1) the spatial distribution of subprime mortgages across census tracts; (2) the relationship between subprime intensities and housing price variations across zip-code areas. As the dissertation's study area expands from an urban to a MSA, spatial heterogeneity merits attention in this relative huge area. As a result, this dissertation not only employs a global, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) model, but also a local, Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) model to examine spatial variations across different neighborhoods. For the first research question, the dissertation finds: (1) a higher concentration of higher-priced mortgage for purchase and refinance in tracts with higher proportion of African-American and Hispanic residents, lower median household incomes, higher-unemployment rates, lower self-employment rates, and higher capitalization rates, after controlling for other variables; (2) the association between higher-priced mortgages and explanatory variables varies across census tracts. Because the dynamics of neighborhood subprime originations are heterogamous, the association between subprime mortgage origination and socioeconomic characteristics may be stronger in some neighborhoods than other neighborhoods. For the second research question, the dissertation finds: (1) subprime mortgage shares have a significant negative association with housing price appreciations during the housing boom period (2001-2006); (2) subprime mortgage shares have a significant positive association with housing price depreciations during the housing bust period (2006-2010); and (3) the association between housing price variations and explanatory variables differs across geographic submarkets within the Philadelphia region. The result confirms that areas where more residents obtained subprime mortgages have suffered more severely than other from the housing market's ups and downs over the last decade. The empirical results can draw broad policy implications. The primary implication is that it is time for the federal government to rethink its homeownership policy. Increased homeownership levels arising from the expansion of subprime mortgages are not sustainable, and subprime lending has exacerbated social inequity between subprime neighborhoods and other neighborhoods. The second implication is that the government needs to enforce the fair lending laws, because the cluster of subprime mortgage origination reflects the unequal opportunities of prime…