Giving Compass' Take:

• Alan Berube advocates for people-place policies that tackle concentrated poverty while investing in human capacities.

• How can combining people and place-based policies give a more complete picture of poverty in America?

• Read more about approaches to reducing concentrated poverty.

In 2007, Ed Glaeser wrote an article in City Journal entitled, “Can Buffalo Ever Come Back?” Its thesis reflected a pretty mainstream view among economists at the time: public policies focused on revitalizing places like Buffalo were ineffective and inefficient.

A couple of things have happened since then, however, that I think noticeably shifted the conversation. The first is the work of another Harvard professor, Raj Chetty, and his colleagues. Their 2015 research helped upend how researchers and policymakers thought about the results of the Moving to Opportunity program. The second event was the 2016 election, specifically the electoral shift from the 2012 results in the states of the Upper Midwest. That shift, in turn, focused a great deal of attention on the declining fortunes of many small- and midsized communities that ultimately swung the Electoral College.

So, economically and politically, there’s an increasing recognition and acceptance that places really do matter. And longer-term trends reaffirm the importance of place.

Concentrated poverty persists at the neighborhood level as well. Compared to 2000, far fewer Americans in poverty today live in low-poverty neighborhoods. Far more live in neighborhoods where at least 20%, 30%, or even 40% of residents also live in poverty. In these ways, certain places continue to multiply the impacts of economic disadvantage that families face.

Then there are “people-place strategies.” Like people-based policies, these strategies invest in human needs and assets, but do so through the lens of specific neighborhoods in order to maximize the impact and coordination of those investments.

To me, these people-place strategies best represent modern thinking about how to overcome disadvantage. Because while they acknowledge that place indeed matters, they also invest in the human capacities that ultimately determine well-being at any geographic scale.

Read the full article about people and place-based policies by Alan Berube at Brookings.