May 20, 1999 | Read Time: 1 minute
Academic research on the causes and consequences of poverty in inner cities is available on a new Web site.
The Smart Library on Urban Poverty Research provides easy-to-read summaries of articles in academic journals and books, organized into four categories: urban community, family, the economy, and work and welfare.
The site is designed so that readers can move easily to articles that answer questions raised by the information they are reading, such as what is the broader context in which the material should be considered and what are its implications for public policy.
For example, by choosing the “Context” link in an article that looks at the wages of workers with little education, users can go to articles that discuss trends in employment, income, and the economic status of minorities in the United States.
Other links take readers to other pieces that provide additional examples of the problem discussed, look at its causes and repercussions, point to alternative ways at looking at the problem, and compare the problem in different places, times, and groups of people.
The site was developed by William Julius Wilson, a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and the National Institute of Social Science Information, in Chicago, which promotes access to social-science information through the Internet.
TO GET THERE: Go to http://www.societyonline.org/urbanpoverty.
