UNRAVELING NEIGHBORHOOD CHANGE USING 2-WAVE PANEL ANALYSIS - A CASE-STUDY OF CLEVELAND IN THE 1980S

The recent social and economic transformation of inner cities in north ern industrial regions is believed to foster conditions of disadvantag e for low-income and minority residents. This article provides an anal ysis of neighborhood change in Cleveland in the 1980s using two-wave p anel design and causal modeling and reveals several findings. The rela tionship of the poverty rate to housing values and the rate of births to unmarried mothers is reciprocal, implying a cycle of social and eco nomic decline of a neighborhood. Although the percentage of nonwhite r esidents continues to predict the neighborhood poverty rate, the effec t of minority populations on lowered housing values was stronger at th e beginning of the decade than at the end, a sign of the declining sig nificance of race on housing values. Drug-related crimes have a logged effect on neighborhood decline, and this effect overwhelms the cross- sectional effect of other types of crime rates, suggesting the pervasi ve influence of drug trafficking on neighborhood social and economic c onditions.