Mapping Urban Poverty

Mapping Urban Poverty is an illuminating use of census and GIS data to show the changes in our cities from 1970 to 2000 by race and income groupings. It shows the concentration of poverty and the overlapping concentration of race, supporting Sampson and Wilson's thesis (PDF) that there is a vicious cycle where macro social forces (poverty and unemployment, racism, segregation, migration) interact with community-level factors (turnover rate, family disruption, crime) to contribute to social disorganization, causing more crime and further family disruption and reasons for increased policing.  it turns out that prison is not a solution for this, as it contributes to further social disorganization, causing more crime (PDF).