Eighth Blog Response

     You've read Sampson on mobility and division in Chicago. So, drawing on and integrating your two emphasis areas, how would you answer these two questions: Why do people chose to move to different neighborhoods? How likely is it that their individual choices will transform the communities they leave or enter?

     Why do people chose to move to different neighborhoods? Drawing on a biological standpoint, there could be many reasons why people choose one place over another. One of the reasons may be that people simply feel more comfortable in neighborhoods where they are surrounded by others like them. The neighborhood surroundings may be something they are comfortable with, or it may fit their life or lifestyle. As people tend to advance through generations, may their education and status will increase, and they will move on to a neighborhood with a higher socioeconomic status than their previous one.
     From a criminal justice standpoint, it could be viewed that people choose their neighborhoods either to participate in or distance themselves from crime. While one person may choose a certain neighborhood because they believe the likelihood of them being caught while participating in a certain act may decrease, another person may avoid that neighborhood due to a negative criminal stigma. The acceptance or avoidance of crime could be used to greatly influence where one chooses to reside, going even as far as to say the country that some people choose to live in may be influenced by the criminal opportunities offered them in a certain area.

     How likely is it that their individual choices will transform the communities they leave or enter? In biology, symbiotic relationships are those where individual organisms affect one another in a positive, negative, or neutral way. While this may not effect the ecology of a large area, it depends on the impact of that organism as to whether it will have a large or a small impact on their environment. As to people, I believe that humans can tend to interact in the same way and influence one another whether negatively, positively, neutrally, or anywhere in-between.
     From a criminal justice standpoint, and drawing from the research done in Sampson's book, it seems that individuals and their choices seem to have little influence on the communities they live in. Many of the things he says point to the fact that communities are an entity in themselves, and that they govern themselves regardless of who's there, who moves in/out, or many other factors.