Lessons in Community from Chicago’s South Side

Robert J. Sampson and his colleagues have devoted decades to studying the enduring impact of place.* They have found that two factors often predict whether a neighborhood is crime prone: Is there mutual trust and altruism among neighbors? and Are neighbors willing to intervene when children misbehave? A murder in Chatham, a resilient pocket on Chicago’s battered South Side, tests another of their theories of social cohesion: that neighborhood character is a major factor in its economic success.

Read the full story in The New York Times.

 

* Their work has been published in book form as Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012). 

 

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About the Lead Author

Benedict Carey
Benedict Carey is a science reporter for The New York Times.

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