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Urban desertification, public health and public order: 'Planned shrinkage', violent death, substance abuse and AIDS in the Bronx

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  • Wallace, Rodrick

Abstract

Techniques and approaches from population and community ecology, along with theoretical viewpoints from criminology and the 'social support hypothesis' of health maintenance, are used to examine recent patterns of rising homicide and suicide, intensified substance abuse, low birth weight and AIDS deaths in the Bronx section of New York City. Empirical and theoretical analyses strongly imply present sharply rising levels of violent death, intensification of deviant behaviors implicated in the spread of AIDS, and the pattern of the AIDS outbreak itself, have been gravely affected, and even strongly determined, by the outcomes of a program of 'planned shrinkage' directed against African-American and Hispanic communities, and implemented through systematic and continuing denial of municipal services--particularly fire extinguishment resources--essential for maintaining urban levels of population density and ensuring community stability. This work complements a recent study by McCord and Freeman [1. New Engl. J. Med. 332, 173, 1990] on Harlem, and suggests the present overburdening of New York's criminal justice system arises from almost exactly the same causes as its accelerating inability to meet demands for acute medical service, so-called 'medical gridlock', in that both are expressions of the increasing social disorganization of poor communities initiated and continued in considerable part by government policy. The critical role played by improper policy in triggering the syndrome suggests ecologically informed interventions, particularly essential service restoration, may hold the potential for great positive impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Wallace, Rodrick, 1990. "Urban desertification, public health and public order: 'Planned shrinkage', violent death, substance abuse and AIDS in the Bronx," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 801-813, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:31:y:1990:i:7:p:801-813
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    Cited by:

    1. Rhodes, Tim & Watts, Louise & Davies, Sarah & Martin, Anthea & Smith, Josie & Clark, David & Craine, Noel & Lyons, Marion, 2007. "Risk, shame and the public injector: A qualitative study of drug injecting in South Wales," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 572-585, August.
    2. Kane, Robert J., 2011. "The ecology of unhealthy places: Violence, birthweight, and the importance of territoriality in structurally disadvantaged communities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(11), pages 1585-1592.
    3. R Wallace, 1994. "A Fractal Model of HIV Transmission on Complex Sociogeographic Networks. Part 2: Spread from a Ghettoized ‘Core Group’ into a ‘General Population’," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 26(5), pages 767-778, May.
    4. Schrecker, Ted, 2007. "Intra-metropolitan health disparities in Canada: Studying how and why globalization matters, and what to do about it," Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, Working Paper Series qt3z7544g1, Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Santa Cruz.
    5. Wallace, Rodrick & Fullilove, Robert E., 2014. "State policy and the political economy of criminal enterprise: mass incarceration and persistent organized hyperviolence in the USA," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 17-31.
    6. Deborah Wallace & Rodrick Wallace, 2000. "Life and Death in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx: Toward an Evolutionary Perspective on Catastrophic Social Change," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(7), pages 1245-1266, July.
    7. Rodrick Wallace & Kristin McCarthy, 2007. "The Unstable Public-Health Ecology of the New York Metropolitan Region: Implications for Accelerated National Spread of Emerging Infection," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(5), pages 1181-1192, May.
    8. R Wallace & D Wallace, 1997. "Resilience and Persistence of the Synergism of Plagues: Stochastic Resonance and the Ecology of Disease, Disorder and Disinvestment in US Urban Neighborhoods," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 29(5), pages 789-804, May.
    9. R Wallace, 1993. "A Fractal Model of HIV Transmission on Complex Sociogeographic Networks: Towards Analysis of Large Data Sets," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 25(1), pages 137-148, January.
    10. R Wallace & D Wallace, 1997. "The Destruction of US Minority Urban Communities and the Resurgence of Tuberculosis: Ecosystem Dynamics of the White Plague in the Dedeveloping World," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 29(2), pages 269-291, February.
    11. R Wallace & A J Flisher & R Fullilove, 1997. "Marginalization, Information, and Infection: Risk Behavior Correlation in Ghettoized Sociogeographic Networks and the Spread of Disease to Majority Populations," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 29(9), pages 1629-1645, September.
    12. Crane, Jonathan & Boccara, Nino & Higdon, Keith, 2000. "The Dynamics of Street Gang Growth and Policy Response," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 1-25, January.
    13. Parrado, Emilio A. & Flippen, Chenoa, 2010. "Community attachment, neighborhood context, and sex worker use among Hispanic migrants in Durham, North Carolina, USA," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(7), pages 1059-1069, April.
    14. Avery Guest & Gunnar Almgren & Jon Hussey, 1998. "The ecology of race and socioeconomic distress: infant and working-age mortality in Chicago," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 35(1), pages 23-34, February.
    15. Rhodes, Tim & Singer, Merrill & Bourgois, Philippe & Friedman, Samuel R. & Strathdee, Steffanie A., 2005. "The social structural production of HIV risk among injecting drug users," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(5), pages 1026-1044, September.
    16. R Wallace & R Fullilove, 1999. "Why Simple Regression Models Work So Well Describing ‘Risk Behaviors’ in the USA," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 31(4), pages 719-734, April.
    17. R Wallace & D Wallace, 1999. "Emerging Infections and Nested Martingales: The Entrainment of Affluent Populations into the Disease Ecology of Marginalization," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 31(10), pages 1787-1803, October.
    18. R Wallace & D Wallace & H Andrews & R Fullilove & M T Fullilove, 1995. "The Spatiotemporal Dynamics of AIDS and TB in the New York Metropolitan Region from a Sociogeographic Perspective: Understanding the Linkages of Central City and Suburbs," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 27(7), pages 1085-1108, July.
    19. Jerry O Jacobson & Nicolas W Hengartner & Thomas A Louis, 2005. "Inequity Measures for Evaluations of Environmental Justice: A Case Study of Close Proximity to Highways in New York City," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(1), pages 21-43, January.
    20. R Wallace & D Wallace & J E Ullmann & H Andrews, 1999. "Deindustrialization, Inner-City Decay, and the Hierarchical Diffusion of AIDS in the USA: How Neoliberal and Cold War Policies Magnified the Ecological Niche for Emerging Infections and Created a Nati," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 31(1), pages 113-139, January.
    21. Cohen, Deborah A. & Ghosh-Dastidar, Bonnie & Scribner, Richard & Miu, Angela & Scott, Molly & Robinson, Paul & Farley, Thomas A. & Bluthenthal, Ricky N. & Brown-Taylor, Didra, 2006. "Alcohol outlets, gonorrhea, and the Los Angeles civil unrest: A longitudinal analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(12), pages 3062-3071, June.

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