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Latinos in the US often settle in ethnic enclave neighborhoods, which research and theory suggests have residents who are less engaged in neighborhood activism. However, we know little about the relationship between living in a Latino ethnic enclave compared to other types of neighborhoods and engaging in neighborhood-focused activism among Latinos. This study, therefore, investigates whether both neighborhood organizational resources and neighborhood needs influence participation in neighborhood-focused activism among Chicago Latinos, and especially, whether those relationships are strongest in Latino ethnic enclave neighborhoods. We conducted multilevel logistic regression predicting neighborhood activism among a subsample of Latino respondents from the Chicago Community Adult Health Study but found no significant neighborhood effects. However, we examined only residents of Mexican descent and found that both organizational resources and needs had the largest, positive effects on neighborhood activism in predominantly Mexican descent neighborhoods. This study contributes to our understanding of neighborhood context and Latino engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses geospatial and regression analyses to examine the relationships among social disorganization, collective efficacy, social control, residence restrictions, spatial autocorrelation, and the neighborhood distribution of registered sex offenders (RSOs) in Chicago. RSOs were concentrated in neighborhoods that had higher levels of social disorganization and lower levels of collective efficacy, offered greater anonymity, and were near other neighborhoods with high concentrations of RSOs. Furthermore, social control mechanisms mediated some of the effects of structural disorganization. The neighborhoods where RSOs were likely to live did not exhibit characteristics that would support the informal social control of such offenders, as RSO legislation assumes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research on neighborhood-level effects on intimate partner violence (IPV) has expanded significantly in the past two decades. However, to date, studies have been unable to disentangle compositional and contextual effects on IPV and have rarely considered the social mechanisms that might link neighborhood conditions to IPV. Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, this study considers individual and contextual influences on violence between partners, and examines the effects of disadvantage and collective efficacy on this type of behavior. Results indicate that neighborhood disadvantage significantly increases and collective efficacy significantly decreases IPV after controlling for individual-level correlates. Our findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that as with street crime, neighborhood disadvantage also exacerbates rates of IPV. However, unlike street crime, the impact of disadvantage on IPV does not appear to be mediated by collective efficacy. Understanding how collective efficacy affects violence between partners remains an open issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper studies the relationship between homicide rate and socioeconomic factors at community area level in Chicago from 1960 to 1995. Most of prior studies of social disorganization theory are based on cross-sectional spatial regression or longitudinal studies. This research integrates space and time in testing social disorganization theory. First, exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) is used to examine dynamic spatial patterns of these indicators. This investigation justifies the estimation of homicide rates across community areas through panel-data models that extend to include spatial lag and spatial error autocorrelation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Why do youth in structurally disadvantaged neighborhoods experience lower levels of informal social control? To answer this question, we examined multilevel data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Using hierarchical regression, we found that (1) neighborhood attachment and satisfaction with police contributed significantly to neighborhood levels of informal social control; and (2) neighborhood attachment and satisfaction with police mediated a substantial portion of the association between informal social control and neighborhood levels of concentrated disadvantage and immigrant concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Macro-structural research in the social disorganization tradition assumes neighborhood structure dictates individual behavior. The current research explores the opposite perspective to determine whether individual attachment to the neighborhood influences perceptions of neighborhood safety. Using the Chicago Metropolitan Area Survey, the results show that loners, persons wishing to move, and renters perceive their neighborhoods as being less safe than attached residents. Implications for future research are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an analysis of recent socioeconomic and voting data on Chicago election districts (wards) in Illinois, as of 1979, designed to demonstrate the means by which the political machine maintains support in big-city environment. As suggested in detail, the traditional models of machine support are based on two contrasting and equally outmoded Images of urban slum communities. The older of these two models, which is called the mass society approach, is linked to the concept of social disorganization and to those works of the Chicago school of urban sociology that were most critical of urbanism. The mass society approach depicts the political machine as one of several powerful, manipulative institutions that exploit a socially atomized urban proletariat. The machine precinct workers are seen as skillful and unscrupulous operators who trade licit and illicit favors for votes. The urban poor are thought to be susceptible to such control because they lack the networks of local and personal ties that, according to democratic theory, would foster among them more stable and constructive political loyalties. It follows that the parts of the city in which the machine exercises the most efficient control are anonymous, socially disorganized slums.

The social disorganization model of crime and delinquency generally has argued that the socioeconomic composition of neighborhoods is related to rates of illegal behavior only to the extent that it increases the likelihood of residential turnover and racial/ethnic heterogeneity. Such an orientation reflects the traditional assumption of human ecology that urban areas are characterized by continual processes of residential upgrading as groups become progressively assimilated into the economic structure of the community and have more economic resources at their disposal. However, the validity of the indirect effect hypothesis may have become questionable in the many cities that have experienced a significant economic decline during the last few decades, thereby leading to the creation of an immobile underclass population. We examine here the relative validity of the indirect effect hypothesis in Chicago's neighborhoods during 1960 and 1980. While the findings generally support the traditional indirect effect assumption of social disorganization, they also emphasize the need to consider the economic and political contexts in which these communities are embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the ecology of the two main functional psychoses in Chicago and a theoretical discussion on the implications of this ecological analysis. Schizophrenia is the most frequently diagnosed mental disorder in the state hospitals throughout the country. This psychosis constitutes between twenty-five and forty percent of the first admissions to hospitals for mental disorders. The percentage varies throughout the U.S. Among these cases of schizophrenia, the males are slightly more numerous than the females, the ratio being 117 males to 100 females. This would indicate that the factor of sex has some significance in connection with schizophrenia. However, in a study of the distribution of the male and female schizophrenic rates separately, there appears to be no radical deviation in the expected pattern. The high rates for total schizophrenia are concentrated in communities of marked social disorganization in Chicago. The distribution of the male and female schizophrenic rates separately show the same concentration in the disorganized communities of the city. The distribution of rates shows the same pattern and concentration by both local and sub-communities and the high rates for paranoid and hebephrenic schizophrenia are concentrated also in these extremely socially disorganized communities in a similar fashion to the total group.