Neighborhood disadvantage and the nature of violence

Although numerous studies have examined the influence of neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage on the quantity of violence, little attention has been devoted to whether such conditions also shape the quality of violence. Drawing on Anderson's (1999) influential ethnography, we derive several hypotheses about how the nature of violence differs across neighborhoods with varying socioeconomic conditions. Using data on assaults and robberies from the area-identified National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), our analyses reveal support for Anderson's description of the nature of violence in different neighborhood contexts, but only mixed support for his argument that those differences are due to neighborhood effects.