UCLA’s Ralph and Goldy Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, in conjunction with the Brookings Institution’s Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, has released a report, “The Trajectory of Poor Neighborhoods in Southern California, 1970–2000.� The report, co-written by Lewis Center director Paul Ong, details the shifting concentration of poor neighborhoods in the Los Angeles region. Report findings include the following:

•The poor population in the Los Angeles region has become more geographically concentrated over the past three decades. The proportion of the region’s poor individuals who live in poor neighborhoods — with poverty rates of at least 20 percent — doubled over 30 years, from 29 percent in 1970 to 57 percent in 2000.

•Areas outside inner-city Los Angeles experienced the most rapid increases in poor neighborhoods, especially during the 1990s. Between 1970 and 2000, the percentage of poor neighborhoods in suburban Los Angeles County quadrupled; it tripled in surrounding counties, and remained relatively constant in inner-city Los Angeles.

•The racial-ethnic and immigration characteristics of poor neighborhoods changed markedly over the three decades, reflecting regionwide changes. The Latino proportion of the population living in very poor neighborhoods — with neighborhood poverty rates of at least 40 percent — increased more than threefold between 1970 and 2000, while the share of the black population living in very poor neighborhoods declined dramatically.

•More of the region’s neighborhoods became poor in the 1990s than in prior decades. International migration to the Los Angeles region played a major role in the development of poor neighborhoods in the 1970s and 1980s, but contributed far less to their growth in the 1990s. ·Employment in very poor neighborhoods increased considerably in the 1980s and 1990s, while single parenthood declined. The labor force participation gap between very poor and non-poor neighborhoods shrank by one-half over the three decades. According to the report’s authors, from 1970 to 2000 the Los Angeles region witnessed a large-scale spatial reorganization of poverty. For example, concentrated poverty once confined to neighborhoods in the inner city, has since spread to the suburbs. The researchers report that the shifting concentration of poor neighborhoods over the 30-year span has been driven mainly by immigration and broader changes in the regional economy. The Lewis Center is located in UCLA’s School of Public Policy and Social Research. Founded in 1994, the school is one of the largest policy schools in the United States and houses the departments of policy studies, social welfare and urban planning.