One central thesis in recent urban poverty research, that social context has further disadvantaged poor residents of central-city neighbourhoods, has not been tested empirically. This analysis examines the strength of relationships among adverse social conditions in neighbourhoods in one North American industrial city. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, the hypothesis that negative social conditions have become increasingly intertwined in the 1980s was supported. Neighbourhoods could be distinguished along several important dimensions in the early 1980s. At the end of the decade, a single dimension of interconnected adverse conditions predominates. While the explanation for these trends is structural, the conditions themselves must be addressed if efforts to revitalise neighbourhoods and prevent the spread of poverty are to succeed.
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