Is Wilson Relevant?

Robert J Sampson wrote about the progression of the neighborhood level effect and why it is still relevant today. He also mentions that stepping stones like William Wilson have contributed many things to neighborhood level studies. William Wilson contributed to the idea that social transformation of the 70’s and 80’s increased concentration of disadvantaged segments of the urban black population (Sampson 2012). Sampson also writes that what should be taken from Wilson is that racially based concentrations of poverty and joblessness have resulted from macro structural changes. With this I started to wonder, what makes Wilsons ideas more relevant today than it was when his book The Truly Disadvantaged was published. What I found was that modern data retrieved from a federally funded program, Moving to Opportunity, has provided support for some of Wilsons argument. Furthermore, the events of the last decade have made it seem that Wilson’s argument may not have actually been heard, but it’s really more relevant today.

        To give some history, the Move to Opportunity was a program that was framed to assess whether neighborhoods matter. It provided poverty level urbanites the chance to move to suburban areas with a condition. This neighborhood had to be at least 90 percent comprised of residents living above the poverty line. In an article featured within The Chronicle Review on higher education by Marc Perry, Robert J. Sampson was featured as explaining that the mixed picture appearing for this project is feeding broader topics about helping the urban underclass. Findings have indicated that families who moved to safer and better-off neighborhoods experienced reductions in obesity and diabetes while also showing less depression. However it did fail to indicate better earnings and job employment.

        Marc Perry brings up Wilson’s association with government and his influence. Having been involved with both Bill Clinton and Obama administrations, society has seen involvement of sociologists decline. Massey has even been quoted as stating that sociologists felt marginalized (Perry, 2012). Yet concentrated poverty after decreasing in the 1990’s has now started to rise again in the 20^th century. Perry argues that the new administration has lacked in bringing up racial issues within the urban areas and in fact downplayed them. With events in the last few years like Ferguson and the death of Eric Garner have shown an increase for information in administration about urban race issues. With rising concentration of poverty and main stream media issues of race, there has not been a more important time for scholars to address this stagnant issue.

        So I ask again, with declining influence within governmental policies and issues and the mixed results for whether the neighborhood matters or not, what makes sociology and Wilson’s arguments more relevant today. The simple matter is that neighborhood level effects had started to be shunned away from for fear of the ecological fallacy. Yet like Sampson points out the individualistic fallacy can’t be ignored either. It’s not that previous research isn’t valid, but that we need to properly frame questions and units of analysis. That still however doesn’t address the relevance of Wilson’s neighborhood level effect argument.

        To do this with the first two chapters, one must realize that a major proponent for the argument against is an ideas proposed by Wilson is this idea of placelessness. That we can be anywhere and nowhere because we are all preoccupied and liberated by technology. Sampson points out a stereotype of a girl who is always on here phone. To back this up, there have been videos of women on their phone walking into fountains, maybe that’s where he got the idea. Anyway while technology allows us to communicate to others around the globe, conduct business, pay bills, learn, order groceries and shop, etc., technology can’t make us placeless. In an urban community where crime is concentrated in specific areas it is simple to argue that Englewood is different than Oak Lawn, or that people in Boston speak different than people in California. A southern twang is influenced by place, not placelessness. So the argument against concentration effects and neighborhood level effects is fundamentally flawed. One can’t argue effectively that influence of area is negated by liberated tech. With that I leave with the thought that Wilson is relevant for studies today, but I’m excited to see where Sampson expands it.