Yes, there are good things happening in even some of the poorest neighborhoods in urban America.

Yes, there are ways to use data, research, and good policy decisions to strengthen the quality of life in such neighborhoods.

No, it’s not easy and there are no quick solutions.

That can be seen as a summary of a two-day visit to Marquette Law School by one of the most influential figures in America in urban research, Robert Sampson, who is Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and director of the Boston Area Research Initiative. Sampson’s 2012 book, Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect, is playing a significant  role in a surge of big-data projects aimed at thoroughly assessing the strengths and weakness of neighborhoods in cities and using that knowledge to shape more effective ways of preserving and improving neighborhoods.   

Sampson delivered the Law School’s annual Boden Lecture on Wednesday and took part, along with Professor Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, in an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program on Thursday. Sampson also met during his visit with faculty members from Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and with community leaders.

Sampson  took a two-hour driving tour of Milwaukee, including some of the city’s least affluent neighborhoods. Inn important ways, he liked what he saw. He also examined  data about Milwaukee’s strengths and weaknesses. The result was a generally optimistic message about Milwaukee’s potential to improve both overall and in individual neighborhoods.

There is no minimizing Milwaukee’s problems, including high poverty and a high degree of segregation by both race and income, Sampson said. But he pointed to some of the things he saw in the data, including an increase in the city of Milwaukee’s population since 2000; things he heard from people involved in efforts to improve life in Milwaukee neighborhood’s; and things he saw with his own eyes, including low-income neighborhoods that had affordable, generally good housing stock.

One of Sampson’s most influential conclusions has been that, even in areas with high poverty and crime, there is variation from one neighborhood to another in the “collective efficacy” of people in the neighborhood in maintaining quality of life and helping meet neighborhood needs.  There are lessons to be learned from neighborhoods that are doing better, and there are policies, ranging from large-scale initiatives by the federal government or state governments down to nitty-gritty work on policing and  neighborhood-specific disputes and nuisances,  that can help improve life in neighborhoods.

Sampson’s conclusions are based on work including a multi-year study that tracked the lives of 6,200 children in Chicago and an analysis of huge amounts of data about Chicago neighborhoods. But the work also included an unusual experiment in which stamped, addressed letters were dropped in neighborhoods, with the goal of seeing how many were picked up by someone and dropped in mail boxes. The rates of returned envelopes varied widely by neighborhood and correlated with other indications of neighborhood strengths or weaknesses, Sampson said. The envelope test was a good indicator of how much people in a neighborhood were willing to help others.

Sampson moved to Harvard and Boston several years ago and is enthusiastic about a project using mountains of data to look at life in neighborhoods, in hopes of addressing problems effectively. The effort has drawn wide support and involvement.

Sampson said the White House announced an initiative this week to provide funding to 20 cities that are partnering with local universities to conduct work similar to the Boston project. Milwaukee is not among those cities – but Sampson said he couldn’t see any reason why such partnerships couldn’t be launched in Milwaukee and couldn’t have benefit here.

After listing some of the difficult problems facing Milwaukee – poverty, segregation, lack of jobs, high rates of incarceration of black males — Sampson struck an overall positive note in the session with Gousha, the Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy.

“I’m not here just to be a counsel of despair,” he said. ”There are problems. But as I drive around Milwaukee I see lots of potential. And, frankly, maybe it’s just because I lived in Chicago and saw so many disadvantaged neighborhoods, it doesn’t seem that bad to me” in Milwaukee. He said there are many physical assets in neighborhoods and good support for budding initiatives. And there is a context of a national renaissance for urban centers across the United States that Milwaukee can capitalize on.

In the Boden Lecture, he said, “The outside view is that Milwaukee is going down the tubes. I don’t see it. . . . . I have no doubt you can take the city to a better place.”

Video of the “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program may be viewed by clicking here.