Missed opportunities
Researchers have long believed that living in high-poverty neighborhoods makes people more likely to suffer debilitating health problems. Now a newly-published study co-authored by an MIT professor suggests a corollary: Families that live in high-poverty neighborhoods and whose children have health problems find it harder to move out of poverty, too. “If families started out with a sick child in the home, they were much less likely to be able to move to a low-poverty neighborhood,” says Mariana Arcaya, an assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) and co-author of a new paper detailing the study’s results. The study is based on data collected in the federal government’s Moving to Opportunity (MTO) Program, a randomized experiment launched in 1994 in which low-income families received vouchers enabling them to move to new neighborhoods. The idea, in part, was that living in wealthier (and likely safer) areas might help the...