Talk:Concentrated poverty

Week 12 -- Response/Revisions

1) Your org suggestion is clearer; will do

2) Thanks for the more up to date citations. i got going on this project chronologically and got stuck. these will help me update the causes, effects, and critique. a broader discussion of wilson is easy to add, i was aiming for brevity, but this is indeed important

3) ditto on above

4) i can beef up the causal section - again i got stuck looking at the debates of the 80s/90s

5)MTO gave me lots of insights and citations to add on effects or lack there-of so the final version will reflect this

6)Discussing deconcentration through these three egs sounds like a good approach and doable.

7) International perspectives never really got going. so much of the euro geo-work is on race not class; segregation indices rather than class based. For global south, slum development would be an obvious discussion, but it is such a different beast. I'm going to spend my energies this weekend addressing the first 6 points to put forward a strong article and discussion on the US case of which the concept and debates have centered, and will try to link up and list a few sources in this int'l section.

Smith Comments 1) Reorganize. I would suggest the following order instead of the one you currently have: history; American trends; causes of concentrated poverty; effects; deconcentration efforts; and international perspective.

2) History: This section is okay. Critiques of measure and critiques of the concept would probably read better in the actual subsections where you discuss them respectively. I like how you disentangle the analytic, territorial, and causal dimensions of the term from each other. Discussion of each could be elaborated on, especially the first and third, for which there's been lots of debate and critiques, including what you describe thereafter, but also a good deal of what you do not. For instance, in terms of concentrated poverty as a causal factor, there are a number of scholars who argue that the "theory of concentrated poverty" is flawed, and as Steinberg notes, "simplistic, misleading, pregnant with false or unsubstantiated assumptions, and dangerous as a predicate for social policy" (218: 2009). Others who question the legitimacy of a causal framing: Goetz (2003, 2000); Crump (2002); Imbrocio (2008); Tienda (1990). It would make sense to present this perspective as well. Interestingly, even though you link the development of the concept to Wilson, you don't mention Wilson's argument about how concentrated poverty develops and then how it acts as a key mechanism linking a number of structural and demographic factors (economic restructuring and loss of good-paying jobs, outmigration of blacks with means, etc) to high rates of problematic behaviors and outcomes (drug us, crime, poor educational attainment, persistent joblessness, etc). This is key, because, as with the "culture of poverty" thesis, the "concentrated poverty" construct was initially located in largely structural factors, but by and large, scholars and policymakers have largely forgotten its structural roots and focus solely on concentrated poverty as a causal factor in its own right, above and beyond the factors presumed to create it. Now, structural factors forgotten, it is concentrated poverty that leads to the persistence of poverty and that must be addressed head-on through housing policy and the like. Not only should you make this causal argument clear, you should point to those who critique it and explain why--can concentrated poverty be separated from its roots, they ask.

3) American trends. You stop at 2000, but a number of studies have been published recently from the Urban Institute and Brookings, etc., that highlight the re-emergence of concentrated poverty since 2000. You could also do more in each of these "period" sections to explain how trends in concentrated poverty varied by race/ethnicity, immigration status, suburbs vs. central cities, etc. This is important, as it gets at at least one of the major points Wilson (and co-authors) make, which is that although concentrated poverty increased among blacks, Hispanics, and whites throughout 1970-1990s, increases were far more dramatic among blacks, followed by Hispanics, and then to a much lesser extent whites.

4) Causes of concentrated poverty. At this point, you only briefly mention causal factors. I would recommend developing a section on this point, and elaborating on the points you briefly list in the "American Trends and Attributes" section--declining economic growth; relocation of upper- and middle-income residents from the city to the suburbs; demographic changes. Add the movement of the poor, too.

5) Effects. This section is good, although I can't say that I'm a big fan of the Galster-like listing of different types of effects. I think it makes sense to highlight here that the more recent studies are less focused solely on SES characteristics of the neighborhoods than they are social-interactive, institutional, etc., mechanisms. Note that earlier studies of neighborhood effects struggled to find effects. Different now, especially with new data and shift of focus to mechanisms. Scholars have moved beyond "concentrated poverty" to focus on identifying the mechanisms that matter. This isn't clear in this version, although you do go on to list the different types of effects, a la Galston. Sampson et al's annual review would also be useful here.

6) Deconcentration effects. Surprisingly, you don't provide a section on policies that seek to de-concentrate poverty. I would strongly recommend one. Underlying theories. Different approaches taken. Then maybe a focus on the three major initiatives--Gautreaux, MTO, and Hope VI, with brief review of their results. Critiques of these approaches would also be warranted, and then a discussion about alternatives.

7) International Perspective. I agree that this should be included. How do you plan to proceed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Christoph.herring (talk • contribs) 08:07, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Week 10 assignment -- Response/Revisions

Hi, Chris - Great article with a ton of detail! Overall, I think that it reads a bit too academic and less encyclopedic. Certainly I understood the article, but I think that the style of writing in the wikipedia articles is meant to be a bit more colloquial. I agree with Julia's comments that there are probably a ton of places for you to link to other wiki articles - and perhaps some that you want to link even if there aren't pages yet because they deserve their own page. Also, you may want to include the "educational" banner on this talk page so folks know it is being worked on as part of the class (not sure if this matters much anymore, because we may be taking these down at the end of the semester anyway). For more specific comments, I've tried to be thorough so I've organized my comments section by section below. Certainly let me know if you have any questions! -- Ariel

-Links added. Thanks!

[edit] Intro paragraph "policy and scholarship" -- what kind of policy and scholarship? you may want to detail the specific fields/disciplines/professions that deal with these questions such as sociology, urban and regional planning, education, public health, etc. changed to “social policy” and “social science scholarship” "large body of literature" - from where? who is saying this?

- I think this is an acceptable generalization for a wiki article (in fact I stole it from similar articles) and proven from citations below

"additional burdens on poor families that live within them, beyond what the families own individual circumstances would dictate." - I'm not clear on what the 2nd clause of this sentence means "beyond...." - I think that you mean that concentrated poverty exacerbates already difficult situations for families living in poverty? And perhaps this links to the next sentence - that not only are there impacts on individual families but also neighborhoods? You may want to consider the causality, however - I'm not sure concentrated poverty causes issues in surrounding areas so much as a more dialectic between disinvestment in neighborhoods and residents.

- Yes, we conceive of it in the same way. Beyond simply means that an effect occurs that is larger than the sum of its parts. The issue of causality is two-fold and separated in my article for clarification. There is the issue of the causes of “areas of concentrated poverty,” as a territorial category, discussed in the section on American Trends and Attributes- that is historical causes. Then there is “concentrated poverty,” as a variable factor, that is a causal factor in and of itself, discussed under neighborhood effects. I think this distinction is important and I have enhanced this distinction in this revision to make that clearer.

"surrounding areas that limit overall economic potential and social cohesion." -- what are those "areas" are that limit economic potential/social cohesion? Economic potential and social cohesion of what/whom/where? Are you talking about specific spatialities like neighborhoods? You may want to mention neighborhood effects. Also a great reference on this is Briggs' edited volume Geographies of Opportunity: Briggs, X. d. S (Ed.) (2005). The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press Good point, I was missing an article, and rewrote this sentence to make clear that areas of concentrated poverty also have effects on social cohesion and economic opportunity in proximate areas that are not classified as “high-poverty.” You may want to include a clear sentence on what the focus of this article is - being really clear about the timeframe and specific definitions (see below in History section where I address caveats more). A narrow focus is fine, but managing the readers' expectations about this is key up front.

- I understand your point. Were this a ‘closed’ article for a social science encyclopedia I would certainly conclude with a sentence like “this article seeks to . . . .” but in the spirit of openness of the wiki, I do not want to suggest such closure, and would rather treat the intro more as a journalistic lead – basically saying what it is (without breaking down the analytic categories which I do later) and why it matters. [edit] History of Measure and Concept

In the opening paragraph you say that the measure/concept was developed in the 1970s but then you say the first time it was used was in 1960. In 1960 it was just the 20% threshold for low-income areas, not the 40% threshold of concentrated poverty or “extreme poverty”. I have gone back and clarified. The description of the measure's calculation is a bit confusing and academic - is there a way to simplify the statistical language? Unfortunately the whole measure is confusing. I’m writing a critique on this for a small article, which I now cite and raise in the revision. You may want to further clarify that this article is on the 40% measure/concept - the notion of concentrated poverty and efforts to document it date from much earlier - including folks like Booth in late 19th century England and efforts around tenement reform around the turn of the century in the US. The Progressive era reformers and settlement house movement all recognized concentrated poverty as a major policy issue, which spurred the focus on housing policy and regulation. Further, the article focuses on urban/inner-city/suburban communities with little mention of rural concentrations of poverty. Not covering all of this is probably fine, I think just being really explicit/caveating what you're talking about would help manage the readers' expectations.

- That is why I include the 40% threshold in the opening sentence of the article as definitional. I pointed out that such areas existed, but you’re right that I should also mention that reform movements and social scientists identified concentrated poverty as a distinct social problem long before the 60s. I have added a sentence to address this. However, I do not think I need to specifically address these studies, since the term “concentrated poverty” is largely a technical term in policy and social scientific literature, and one that I imagine most people searching for it on Wikipedia will be interested in understanding.

One thing I'd like to see a bit more attention to is the racial dimension of this in the U.S.

- Very good point. Can’t believe I was so blind to this. Went back and added one sentence under “invention of the concept” and a longer concluding sentence under “american trends” Under critiques - this would be a great spot to link to the federal definition of poverty or poverty line.

-Link is great idea. done. I have one line with a citation and three critiques. I think that’s enough for the brevity of this article

Your footnote 8 I think would be worthwhile to include in the article - my sense is that most of the footnotes in wikipedia articles are used for citations but your good explanation of "objective and subjective" in the note would help the reader if it just followed in the text.

- Agreed. Moved it up.

Really like the few paragraphs on critique.

- Added Loic’s.

[edit] Effects In the spirit of the encyclopedia, consider changing your headers to something more explicit like "effects of concentrated poverty" - I find that most of these articles are (painfully) over-explicit.

Point taken - You say "role of "neighboorhood effects" caused by concentrated poverty" -- but I don't think that's quite a right characterization of the neighborhood effects literature. Concentrated poverty is not the cause of neighborhood effects, but rather neighborhood effects is the term for the cumulative impact of concentrated poverty and attendant spatial and behavioral manifestations. I think this is probably more of a semantic thing in this sentence, as you go on to describe the complex interplay of neighborhood and social factors. Some additional citations on neighborhood effects that may have some helpful framing include: Ellen, I. G. & Turner, M. A. (1997). Does Neighborhood Matter? Assessing Recent Evidence. Housing Policy Debate, 8 (4): 833-866 Sampson, R. J., Morenoff, J. D., & Gannon-Rowley, T. (2002). Assessing "Neighborhood Effects": Social Processes and New Directions in Research. Annual Review of Sociology, 28: 443-78 Briggs, X. d. S (Ed.) (2005). The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press Dreier, P., Mollenkopf, J., & Swanstrom, T. (2004) Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-first Century. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press I think the subsequent detail you lay out from Galster's argument is really interesting, but does not actually belong in your article. I think it should be a separate article on neighborhood effects. (Right now Wikipedia only has a "neighbourhood effect" page that focuses on voting behavior so that would not be a place to link to but I think neighborhood effects certainly deserves its own page- my wiki article on mixed income housing would link to it too!) You may also be interested in the work of Mark Joseph at Case Western - he focuses on housing as an intervention in concentrated poverty and has written 2 pieces that simply lay out the detailed theory that Galster describes, and then goes on to talk about how/if the assumptions in that model point to housing as an effective intervention. Joseph, M. L. (2007). Is Mixed-income Development an Antidote to Urban Poverty? Housing Policy Debate 17 (2): 209–234 Joseph, M. L., Chaskin, R. J., & Webber, H. S. (2007). The Theoretical Basis for Addressing Poverty Through Mixed-Income Development. Urban Affairs Review, 42 (3): 371

- I agree that wiki could use an article on neighborhood effects, which might allow me to shorten this. However, I think, as pointed out by the wiki-reviewer, readers want to know What Effects concentrated poverty have, and I think this is necessary. I agree that my characterization is confusing, so i've sought to clarify this in the revisoin. thanks for the suggested lit.

[edit] American Trends and Attributes This could be a good opportunity to again reference some of the critiques and also the limited history you are looking at - and the limited time frame that systemic data for trends are available. I think you are only focusing on "Trends" - really the rest of the article is focused on the attributes/definition of U.S. concentrated poverty.

The attributes speaks to the Ethnoracial problematique (which I enhanced in the revision) (1970-1990) and the changing qualitative shifts attributes (1990-). But you’re right, these could also be called trends when put into dynamic perspectives as I do here.

I really like your discussion of regional dynamics - and this speaks directly to Massey and Denton's critique. The sentences could be a bit more succinct, and perhaps present an opportunity to link to other wiki pages that can give readers more direction on some of the more jargony terms (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Statistical_Area). Do you have a citation(s) for the last sentence of the 1970-90 paragraph?

- These are all apart of WJW argument whose citation I’ve added.

[edit] European Trends & Attributes Consider making this section something like "international perspectives on concentrated poverty." I would avoid an overly western lens, as "concentrated poverty" as a measurement/analytic tool is obviously politically/culturally constructed. Understanding how other countries - certainly some in Europe - but also elsewhere in the world define and manage "concentrated poverty" is really important. One caution - this section could easily go down the path of talking about differences in how to measure poverty - absolute, relative, pre/post transfer, etc. so while that may be necessary a bit, try to keep focused on how these international contexts focus on concentrated poverty.

- I’m keeping my article more limited. As I’ve decided to not talk about

[edit] Neighborhoods of Concentrated Poverty I'm not clear on what this section will be, or how it's distinct from the article as a whole. Concentrated poverty is a metric that is useful because it provides a spatial dimension to understanding the presence, persistence, and impact of living in material deprivation, which inherently implies neighborhood. Are you going to provide specific examples? What value does this add to your article? Again, without knowing exactly what you're proposing here, I think any specific details on neighborhoods of concentrated poverty should be included earlier as a preface/connected to the "neighborhood effects" section. I'm not sure how just links to specific examples will offer much value to your article.

- Cut. I was just going to add links to ghetto, barrio, slum, etc. as they are all different types of the definition’s territorial category.

[edit] Interventions I think a final section on solutions/policy interventions will be helpful given the audience. You've done a good job of laying out the issue/concept and talking about how this is centered as a policy discussion - so I'm left wanting a bit more on what is being done to ameliorate this problem.

-Great point, adding a section on "Deconcentration"

Finally - you have some sort of note from the wiki-powers-that-be re: your additional citations at the end of the article - I assume you are

- still working with these sources and will add them eventually but if not, I'll just delete them.

Week 9 assignment -- 2nd peer review

Hi, Chris - Great article with a ton of detail!

Overall, I think that it reads a bit too academic and less encyclopedic. Certainly I understood the article, but I think that the style of writing in the wikipedia articles is meant to be a bit more colloquial. I agree with Julia's comments that there are probably a ton of places for you to link to other wiki articles - and perhaps some that you want to link even if there aren't pages yet because they deserve their own page. Also, you may want to include the "educational" banner on this talk page so folks know it is being worked on as part of the class (not sure if this matters much anymore, because we may be taking these down at the end of the semester anyway). For more specific comments, I've tried to be thorough so I've organized my comments section by section below. Certainly let me know if you have any questions! -- Ariel

Intro paragraph

"policy and scholarship" -- what kind of policy and scholarship? you may want to detail the specific fields/disciplines/professions that deal with these questions such as sociology, urban and regional planning, education, public health, etc.

"large body of literature" - from where? who is saying this?

"additional burdens on poor families that live within them, beyond what the families own individual circumstances would dictate." - I'm not clear on what the 2nd clause of this sentence means "beyond...." - I think that you mean that concentrated poverty exacerbates already difficult situations for families living in poverty? And perhaps this links to the next sentence - that not only are there impacts on individual families but also neighborhoods? You may want to consider the causality, however - I'm not sure concentrated poverty causes issues in surrounding areas so much as a more dialectic between disinvestment in neighborhoods and residents.

"surrounding areas that limit overall economic potential and social cohesion." -- what are those "areas" are that limit economic potential/social cohesion? Economic potential and social cohesion of what/whom/where? Are you talking about specific spatialities like neighborhoods? You may want to mention neighborhood effects. Also a great reference on this is Briggs' edited volume Geographies of Opportunity: Briggs, X. d. S (Ed.) (2005). The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press

You may want to include a clear sentence on what the focus of this article is - being really clear about the timeframe and specific definitions (see below in History section where I address caveats more). A narrow focus is fine, but managing the readers' expectations about this is key up front.

History of Measure and Concept

In the opening paragraph you say that the measure/concept was developed in the 1970s but then you say the first time it was used was in 1960.

The description of the measure's calculation is a bit confusing and academic - is there a way to simplify the statistical language?

You may want to further clarify that this article is on the 40% measure/concept - the notion of concentrated poverty and efforts to document it date from much earlier - including folks like Booth in late 19th century England and efforts around tenement reform around the turn of the century in the US. The Progressive era reformers and settlement house movement all recognized concentrated poverty as a major policy issue, which spurred the focus on housing policy and regulation. Further, the article focuses on urban/inner-city/suburban communities with little mention of rural concentrations of poverty. Not covering all of this is probably fine, I think just being really explicit/caveating what you're talking about would help manage the readers' expectations.

One thing I'd like to see a bit more attention to is the racial dimension of this in the U.S.

Under critiques - this would be a great spot to link to the federal definition of poverty or poverty line.

Your footnote 8 I think would be worthwhile to include in the article - my sense is that most of the footnotes in wikipedia articles are used for citations but your good explanation of "objective and subjective" in the note would help the reader if it just followed in the text.

Really like the few paragraphs on critique.

Effects

In the spirit of the encyclopedia, consider changing your headers to something more explicit like "effects of concentrated poverty" - I find that most of these articles are (painfully) over-explicit.

You say "role of "neighboorhood effects" caused by concentrated poverty" -- but I don't think that's quite a right characterization of the neighborhood effects literature. Concentrated poverty is not the cause of neighborhood effects, but rather neighborhood effects is the term for the cumulative impact of concentrated poverty and attendant spatial and behavioral manifestations. I think this is probably more of a semantic thing in this sentence, as you go on to describe the complex interplay of neighborhood and social factors. Some additional citations on neighborhood effects that may have some helpful framing include:

Ellen, I. G. & Turner, M. A. (1997). Does Neighborhood Matter? Assessing Recent Evidence. Housing Policy Debate, 8 (4): 833-866

Sampson, R. J., Morenoff, J. D., & Gannon-Rowley, T. (2002). Assessing "Neighborhood Effects": Social Processes and New Directions in Research. Annual Review of Sociology, 28: 443-78

Briggs, X. d. S (Ed.) (2005). The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press

Dreier, P., Mollenkopf, J., & Swanstrom, T. (2004) Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-first Century. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press

I think the subsequent detail you lay out from Galster's argument is really interesting, but does not actually belong in your article. I think it should be a separate article on neighborhood effects. (Right now Wikipedia only has a "neighbourhood effect" page that focuses on voting behavior so that would not be a place to link to but I think neighborhood effects certainly deserves its own page- my wiki article on mixed income housing would link to it too!) You may also be interested in the work of Mark Joseph at Case Western - he focuses on housing as an intervention in concentrated poverty and has written 2 pieces that simply lay out the detailed theory that Galster describes, and then goes on to talk about how/if the assumptions in that model point to housing as an effective intervention.

Joseph, M. L. (2007). Is Mixed-income Development an Antidote to Urban Poverty? Housing Policy Debate 17 (2): 209–234

Joseph, M. L., Chaskin, R. J., & Webber, H. S. (2007). The Theoretical Basis for Addressing Poverty Through Mixed-Income Development. Urban Affairs Review, 42 (3): 371

American Trends and Attributes

This could be a good opportunity to again reference some of the critiques and also the limited history you are looking at - and the limited time frame that systemic data for trends are available.

I think you are only focusing on "Trends" - really the rest of the article is focused on the attributes/definition of U.S. concentrated poverty.

I really like your discussion of regional dynamics - and this speaks directly to Massey and Denton's critique. The sentences could be a bit more succinct, and perhaps present an opportunity to link to other wiki pages that can give readers more direction on some of the more jargony terms (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Statistical_Area).

Do you have a citation(s) for the last sentence of the 1970-90 paragraph?

European Trends & Attributes

Consider making this section something like "international perspectives on concentrated poverty." I would avoid an overly western lens, as "concentrated poverty" as a measurement/analytic tool is obviously politically/culturally constructed. Understanding how other countries - certainly some in Europe - but also elsewhere in the world define and manage "concentrated poverty" is really important.

One caution - this section could easily go down the path of talking about differences in how to measure poverty - absolute, relative, pre/post transfer, etc. so while that may be necessary a bit, try to keep focused on how these international contexts focus on concentrated poverty.

Neighborhoods of Concentrated Poverty

I'm not clear on what this section will be, or how it's distinct from the article as a whole. Concentrated poverty is a metric that is useful because it provides a spatial dimension to understanding the presence, persistence, and impact of living in material deprivation, which inherently implies neighborhood. Are you going to provide specific examples? What value does this add to your article? Again, without knowing exactly what you're proposing here, I think any specific details on neighborhoods of concentrated poverty should be included earlier as a preface/connected to the "neighborhood effects" section. I'm not sure how just links to specific examples will offer much value to your article.

Interventions

I think a final section on solutions/policy interventions will be helpful given the audience. You've done a good job of laying out the issue/concept and talking about how this is centered as a policy discussion - so I'm left wanting a bit more on what is being done to ameliorate this problem.

Finally - you have some sort of note from the wiki-powers-that-be re: your additional citations at the end of the article - I assume you are still working with these sources and will add them eventually but if not, just delete them.

Week 8 assignment - peer's review

Hi Chris,

You have some really impressive sources gathered, but I'd like to see more content in the article before I can really evaluate it. Will you be dedicating much space to the consequences of concentrated poverty and what kind of policy initiatives have targeted it, or are you discussing the idea/concept of concentrated poverty more generally? Also, beware of employing too much technical, sociologically-specific language in your article - if someone with no background in social science read it as it currently exists, they might get scared off by the vocabulary. A phrase like "negative contextual effects or 'neighborhood effects' " can be overwhelming to someone from outside the social sciences. The concept doesn't need to be dumbed down, but the language could be simplified.

Regards, Julia JuliaK (talk) 08:06, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes this is a great starting point, but information should definitely be included on how areas of concentrated poverty 'burden' the poor that live there.

Cheers, Allisonhamburg (talk) 19:46, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Chris - sorry, the previous review was a bit premature. Great job in really fleshing out the content. I think you mean census "tracts" instead of tracks? One thing to keep in mind when writing for Wikipedia is that you want to include lots of links within the text to the articles about concepts you mention - for example, link to William Julius Wilson so that if people are interested in learning more about his work, they can just click there. I like the detail you've given in your explanation of neighborhood, environmental, geographical, and institutional effects, but there is so much content within each of those that they might each deserve their own page, rather than being content-heavy on the page about concentrated poverty. Perhaps break the article up that way? It might also be useful to include, at the end, links to similar articles in a "see also" section. That would help people who want to get a broader conception of the topic. Very well done and admirably researched! JuliaK (talk) 07:50, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposal for Revision

Hello Wikipedians, I have selected this article for possible revision, given the article's standing as C-class and American-centric viewpoint. My plan is to expand the information to provide a more global perspective, include more examples, and overall clean up some of the language. For updates on my plans, check out my user page. Also feel free to make any comments or suggestions. -Ddegenhart (talk) 02:13, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

I will continue pursuing revision of this article, aiming to bring it above C-class and ensure it receives an importance rating under the relevant WikiProjects. For further information regarding my planned revisions, please refer to my user page, where you will find my revision plans and sources under consideration. Feel free to comment on any of the proposed changes. -Ddegenhart (talk) 04:17, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

I have begun the revision process, starting with what was formerly the "History" section. In this section, I changed the title to reflect the content's US focus, as well as reworded and restructured all paragraphs for clarity. Please reply with any feedback. --Ddegenhart (talk) 01:58, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

I have completed my initial contribution to this article, featuring extensive revision of the "History of concentrated poverty in the United States" and "American trends" section. Additionally, "Regional examples" has been added to include examples of concentrated poverty throughout the world, beginning with the United States and Brazil. New images will allow readers to observe living conditions in these areas, and additional rewording of titles sets the foundation for further revisions. --Ddegenhart (talk) 04:50, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Peer Review on Proposed Edits

Ddegenhart, I think that overall the edits you have proposed are quite solid. I think the article is presented in a neutral manner and is largely holistic in the information it presents. The main correction I would suggest is to improve the structure of the article and give the language in the sections you did not focus on improving a quick polish for language. Good job overall. Claudia Paine22 (talk) 22:29, 23 March 2020 (UTC)