The Contingent Meaning of Neighborhood Stability for Residents' Psychological Well-Being

nities and the individuals who live in them, and may be especially beneficial in poor neighborhoods. In contrast, a social isolation perspective proposes that neighborhood stability has negative effects on residents'psychological well-being in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. This analysis of multilevel data-data in which survey information from a representative sample of Illinois residents is linked to census-tract information about poverty and stability in their neighborhoodsupports a social isolation perspective. In affluent neighborhoods, stability is associated with low levels of distress; under conditions of poverty the opposite is true. In part this occurs because residents of poor, stable neighborhoods face high levels of disorder in their neighborhoods. Stability does not reduce perceived disorder under conditions of poverty, as it does in more affluent neighborhoods, which leaves residents feeling powerless to leave a dangerous place. Finally, the negative effects of poor, stable neighborhoods on residents'psychological well-being do not stem from a lack of social ties among neighbors. N EIGHBORHOOD stability traditionally has been heralded as a boon to quality of life, but stability's influence may not always be positive. We extend the research on neighborhood stability by showing how the benefits of stability for individual psychological well-being depend on the local economic context. We make three contributions. First, we directly assess residents' psychological distress, measured as depression and anxiety. We depart from the tradition of considering crime as the ultimate outcome and instead examine the effects of neighborhood stability and poverty on the psychological well-being of residents. Second, we examine the effects of residential stability across different types of neighborhoods because the effect of neighborhood stability on psychological well-being may depend on economic context. Third, we investigate whether physical and social disorder in the neighborhood mediates the joint effect of neighborhood stability and poverty on distress because disorder influences residents' perceptions that they are powerless to leave a threatening and dangerous environment.