The Impact of Housing Submarkets and Urban Form on the Foreclosure Crisis in U.S. Urban Counties

In this article, the authors introduce a novel way to define and measure housing submarkets in relation to foreclosures. Instead of the traditional methods of identifying submarkets a priori, this study uses an approach that empirically delineates housing submarkets based on spatial contiguity and housing attributes. The spatial clustering algorithm developed for this study identified submarkets in each of the urban counties. A spatial regression model was then used to assess the impact of submarket structure on foreclosure rates. In addition, the study also incorporates a measure of sprawl in its analysis. It was found that sprawling counties are not more likely to have higher rates of foreclosures compared with average rates. However, the counties with smaller and more fragmented housing submarkets are likely to have lower rates of foreclosures. The results suggest that urban form is less consequential than housing market structure in affecting U.S. housing market dynamics.     

Synthetic Performance Indicators for Residential Housing Agencies

Many public administrations produce and distribute public services through a number of similar local autonomous organizations, or institutions, operating in different parts of the territory assigned to them under a centralized authority. Examples of this are the public residential housing institutions, the institutions for waste disposal, health care institutions, and education institutions. The problem arises regarding the evaluation of the performance of these local organizations and institutions not in absolute but in relative terms, in order to determine what incentives or sanctions should be meted out to them. This study presents the methodological problems, the data analysis, and the initial results of the method adopted by the Lombardy Region to create a system of performance indicators that will permit an automatic ranking of the Residential Housing Agencies in Lombardy （ALER） according to their performance, based on information from their balance sheets. A performance index was devised by rationally combining the results of three different analyses： position analysis, ranking analysis, and scoring analysis. The results allowed the central administration to： （1） motivate the managers of the local units through a system of performance-based incentives; （2） aggregate poorly performing local units or outsource inefficient functions; and （3） create competition among local units and raise overall performance levels.     

Do Small Area Fair Market Rents Reduce Racial Disparities in the Voucher Program?

ABSTRACT

A lawsuit that argued that the method used to calculate rent limits in the Housing Choice Voucher Program promoted racial segregation in Dallas, Texas, resulted in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development developing zip code-based voucher rent limits in Dallas in 2011. This rent calculation approach was then expanded to five other demonstration sites in 2012. This article analyzes whether adjusting voucher rent limits reduces a minority household’s likelihood of living in a high-minority neighborhood, improves their likelihood of living in a higher opportunity neighborhood, and reduces the disparity in location outcomes between minority and White households in the voucher program. This article finds evidence of improvements in the location outcomes of Black and Hispanic voucher households because of the use of zip code-based rent limits, but that these results are only marginal with respect to the persistent disparities in outcomes based on race within the voucher program.     

Housing prices and wealth inequality in Western Europe

Abstract

Comparative political economy (CPE) has robustly examined the political and institutional determinants of income inequality. However, the study of wealth, which is more unequally distributed than income, has been largely understudied within CPE. Using new data from the World Income Database (WID), this article examines how economic, political and institutional dynamics shape wealth-to-income ratios within Western European and OECD countries. It is found that the political and institutional determinants that affect income inequality have no short- or long-run effects on the wealth-to-income ratio. Rather, the rise in wealth-to-income ratios is driven by rising housing prices, as well as price changes in other financial assets, not home ownership or national saving rates. The article concludes by examining how the changing dynamics of housing prices and wealth inequality will increasingly shape intergenerational – and associated class-based – political conflict in Western Europe.     

Confronting Urban Crisis and Opportunity in the 1990s: An Insiders’ View on How Fannie Mae’s Housing Research Helped Reset Policy and Remade Cities

In response to the urban crisis of the early 1990s, the government-sponsored enterprise known as Fannie Mae used what would become the Annual Housing Conference (AHC) to influence urban and housing policy. This article traces the history of the AHC in relation to Housing Policy Debate as part of a concerted effort of Fannie Mae to invest in and upgrade the quality of urban and housing policy research during the 1990s. The impact of these conferences on the policy community in universities, Washington DC, the states, and indeed the world is analyzed by highlighting some of work that came out of the more influential conferences including the 1991 Homeless Conference, the 1994 Access to Opportunity Conference, and the 1997 Social Capital Conference. The article is concluded with an appraisal of the AHC’s legacy.     

Is Urban Sprawl Good for Minorities?

This article investigates the effect of urban sprawl, as measured by employment decentralization, on minority housing consumption gaps since the housing bust. Previous research contends that sprawl contributes to reducing the Black–White housing consumption gap by increasing the supply of land in housing markets and thereby increasing affordability. Antisprawl policies may therefore exacerbate the Black–White housing disparity. This research makes two contributions to the literature. First, the article examines how changes in sprawl may have varying influences on the Black–White housing gap, a previously unexamined facet of this relationship. In the vast majority of metropolitan areas in this sample, sprawl is predicted to exacerbate the Black–White housing gap until sprawl reaches a threshold. Only in a limited number of high-sprawl metropolitan areas does sprawl contribute to reducing the Black–White housing gap. Second, the article examines differences in housing gaps for three distinct minority groups—Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics—using recent data from the 2009 American Housing Survey. For Blacks, sprawl continues to have varying effects on housing consumption. For Asians, urban sprawl yields significant gains in housing consumption relative to Whites. However, no significant results occur for Hispanics. This article demonstrates that the independent effect of urban sprawl on U.S. minority housing consumption is a highly uneven process in the post–Great Recession economy. As such, arguments that antisprawl policies reduce minority gains in housing should be treated with considerable skepticism.     

The post‐Stalinist present and the Australian past

Abstract

Since 1979, housing reforms in China have been seen as successive state efforts to improve urban governance. The idea is that the state has all along failed to deliver housing efficiently and equitably through the work units and that it is believed that only through the recommodification of housing could the housing problem be ultimately resolved. The housing monetarization policy (HMP) was thus launched in 1998 to replace the long-standing in-kind housing subsidy under the old welfare housing system. The policy aims at providing workers with cash subsidies as part of their wage package to enable them to buy or rent their homes from the market. The purpose of this paper is to explain the implications of the HMP through a neoliberal urbanization perspective. Through the case study of Guiyang, it is argued that while the HMP is successful in improving certain historical housing inequalities, it does not primarily aim at eradicating housing inequalities. HMP has in fact led to more rather than less horizontal inequities. In addition, it is argued here that a market housing system is leading towards increasing urban poverty, greater social polarization and spatial segregation. To improve governance, China needs to keep neoliberal urbanization in check and pay serious attention to its adverse consequences during economic transformation.     

The Concept, Connotations and Theoretical Frame of Urban Systems Engineering

Based on the concept of urban development, definition of urban systems engineering （USE） was put forward as a methodology for dealing with problems in the process of optimal evolution of urban whole, which is under the guidance of combination of urban thoughts and system approaches. Then the connotations of USE were elaborated, making the viewpoint of space time as a research clue, city and development as two research themes, urban system, urban logic and urban institution as three research dimensions, and stages, rules, strategies and regulation of development as four research problems. Finally by making Wuli-Shili-Renli systems methodology as stand, the theoretical frame of USE was built.     

Cores and Peripheries: Spatial Analysis of Housing Choice Voucher Distribution in the San Francisco Bay Area Region, 2000–2010

This study uses spatial regressions and spatial statistics to examine the changes in the distribution of Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) households within an expanded San Francisco Bay Area region. From 2000 to 2010, the density of HCV households grew disproportionately across the region, and areas of significant increase emerged in both the region’s urban cores and its rural periphery. Furthermore, the destination communities shared a set of common characteristics. In 2010 HCV households were more likely to locate in areas with lower housing prices, lower percentages of educated people, higher rates of poverty, and higher percentages of African American households when compared with the region as a whole. These findings suggest that voucher holders locate where housing is affordable. We conclude that in regions with tight housing markets, supply matters. This study also introduces housing researchers and policy makers to a methodological approach that addresses what is known in geostatistics as a change of support problem.     

中国主要城市群的人口模式分类研究

城市群是区域经济和人口的主要空间载体,深入研究其人口集聚、发展状况,有利于促进城市群形成合理的区域发展格局。从构成城市群的主要人口要素出发,选取反映城市群人口特征的若干主要指标,运用聚类分析方法,对我国主要城市群人口特征进行空间分类研究,发现中国19个主要城市群按照其主要人口特征可明显分为五个人口类别,各类别之间存在显著差异:第一类城市群包括珠三角、长三角和京津冀3个城市群,特征是人口规模大、密度高、城市化水平高;第二类城市群包括成渝、长江中游、海峡西岸、山东半岛、北部湾、关中平原6个城市群,特征是人口增长率高、人口空间分布比较合理;第三类城市群包括中原、哈长、山西中部、滇中、辽中南5个城市群,特征是人口增长率低、城市化水平不高;第四类城市群包括兰西、黔中2个城市群,其特征是人口规模小、城市化水平低;第五类城市群包括天山北坡、呼包鄂榆、宁夏沿黄3个城市群,其特征是人口规模小、密度低、空间分布欠合理。在促进城市群发展的政策方面应进行差异化人口政策引导,在优化人口发展的侧重点和具体策略方面应有针对性区别施策。     

Grey Power: Towards a Political Economy of Older Voters in the UK

The impact of age on voting behaviour and political outcomes has become an issue of increasing interest, particularly in the UK. Age divides in voter turnout and political preferences have led to claims that age is the ‘new class’. In this article, we contrast existing ‘cultural backlash’ and political economy explanations of the age divide in politics, and challenge the view that older people are predominantly ‘left behind’, culturally or economically. We show that older people have distinct material interests, related to housing wealth and pensions’ income, that are visible in their political preferences. We argue for the development of a new political economy of age.