| Abstrakt: |
Galaskiewicz, Duckles, and Mayorova (2004) reported on the service providers that children utilized on a typical Saturday during the school year. The higher the family income, the more likely children used businesses and nonprofits, and the lower the family income the more likely children used government and informal venues. Only churches tended to serve a broad range of income brackets. This paper extends this research arguing that utilization patterns are a function of providers being available to users in the neighborhoods. Using 2000 Census data from the Phoenix-Mesa metropolitan area, the site of the previous study, we hypothesize that businesses and nonprofits are more likely to be found in higher income areas, while government agencies should be located in lower income areas. Churches should be randomly distributed across tracts at all income levels. We found no income effects on the number of government providers or businesses, but we did find that nonprofits and churches were more numerous in higher income census tracts. Thus spatial proximity may explain the utilization patterns of nonprofit providers by different income strata, however, it does not explain the utilization of churches, governmental agencies, and businesses by low, middle, and upper income families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
