Mixed-income communities to teach uproductive citizens?- Annotated bibiliography

 Dumalo, Kassie. McDade, Zach. Levy, K. Diane. “Effects from Living in Mixed-Income Communities for Low-Income Families: A Review of the Literature.” Urban Institute (2010): pg. 1-37. Web. 18 March 2011.

This article is about the various factors that are necessary to consider when creating a mixed-income environment. They bring up some questions I had never thought of when researching this project such as What is community? and What is the definition of a mixed-income environment? The article also points out some things to consider like how big the income gap should be allowed to be in a mixed-income environment and an equal amount of low-income, middle income and high income households living in the same designated area. According to this article the middle class would be a good way to close the gap between low-income and high-income households.
    When explaining the benefits of a mixed-income environment I kind of got the sense, and maybe I’m reading it wrong, that the highest of the income ladder are “better” than low-income families, “Mixed-income environments are believed to: improve social control, where the presence of higher-income people leads to higher levels of accountability to established norms and rules followed by increased order and safety; offer behavioral effects in which higher-income residents model alternate lifestyles and norms, which in turn promote behavioral change and increased self-efficacy among low-income residents”. It reminds me of the video I saw of them men in New Orleans who were saying that low-income families don’t want to move to suburban neighborhoods because then they would have to actually follow rules and take care of things. Maybe that example is a little extreme to what this article is saying but it does, to some extent, believe in the idea that low-income families don’t like to follow the rules everyone else in the community usually does and that they are unproductive citizens. It makes me wonder if this thought is merely a misconception or has been proven before.