How to think about place and people approaches to poverty : the significance of the earned income tax credit as neighborhood investment/ created by James H. Spencer

Spatially concentrated poverty has been the subject of scholarly research and policy debates since at least the late 1980s. The frameworks for understanding these studies and debates have focused on causes related to individuals, or “people,” and neighborhoods, or “places.” This article reviews the literature on people-based and place-based policy, suggesting that the dichotomy obscures important spatial impacts of individual entitlements and the impact of place-based policies on individual residents. The study empirically examines the implementation of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in Los Angeles and compares its spatial characteristics with the public investments associated with the place-based Enterprise Zone (EZ) program. Findings show that the EITC represents a significantly greater, though unintended, investment in poor neighborhoods than does the EZ and suggest new scholarly research and policy directions.