Urban poverty: Scientific and ethical considerations

Concentrated urban poverty in the United States is addressed from a dual perspective. The first viewpoint is derived from the social science literature. To advance the existing base of knowledge, reference is made to a specific research program, the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. This effort is currently in mid-course of a decade-long study of children from all major racial/ethnic, social class, and neighborhood groups in the city and is demonstrating the negative impacts on children's behavioral and social development of being raised in zones of concentrated poverty. The second perspective views urban poverty in the context of widening income disparity and through the lens of the economic and social rights accorded to citizens of a democracy. Political leadership is urgently needed to challenge this level of disparity and to acknowledge concentrated urban poverty as an insidious violation of human rights, particularly those of African American children.