Mobility and Transportation

Americans change residences frequently. Residential mobility can reflect positive changes in a family's circumstances or be a symptom of instability and insecurity. Mobility may also change neighborhoods as a whole. To shed light on these challenges, this report uses a unique survey conducted for the Making Connections initiative. The first component measures how mobility contributed to changes in neighborhoods' composition and characteristics. The second component identifies groups of households that reflect different reasons for moving or staying in place. The final component introduces five stylized models of neighborhood performance: each has implications for low-income families' well-being and for community-change efforts.

While the increase in gas prices has increased costs for all commuters, workers from households whose income is below the federal poverty level pay a larger proportion of their income for gas. This fact sheet uses data from the 2006 American Community Survey to quantify the relative burden of gas use for commuting.

MTO offered families living in concentrated poverty the chance to move to lower poverty areas, away from the high unemployment and high crime rates areas with the challenges and risks they present. This brief looks at whether the program was successful in helping families move away from those neighborhoods and stay away from them, noting both the reasons for subsequent moves and the characteristics of the neighborhoods to which they made those moves.

Panelists discussed the needs of the frail elderly and homeless populations, the missing pieces in housing options, design solutions that can improve accommodations, and ways to better a delivery system that is highly fragmented across jurisdictions and target populations.

This paper analyzes special problems faced in disasters by institutions that have custodial responsibility for human beings. Hospitals in New Orleans did not evacuate in advance of Katrina, but the flooding that followed the hurricane made it essential that many hospitals be evacuated. Based on interviews and public sources of information, we describe hospitals' experiences in the days that followed the hurricane and lessons for hospitals in circumstances in which evacuation may arise. Many types of patients present distinct challenges in evacuation circumstances. Planning by individual hospitals is essential but inadequate in circumstances in which multiple facilities are affected.