Revitalizing the Parramore heritage renovation area: Florida's state housing initiatives partnership program and Orlando's historic African‐American community

Abstract

Housing programs increasingly contribute to broader community revitalization efforts rather than strictly serving production‐oriented goals. As implementation of this strategy moves beyond the traditional housing leaders in cities such as Boston, Cleveland, and Baltimore, an assessment of other areas is instructive. This article examines how the nation's largest housing trust fund, which Florida directs primarily to local governments through the State Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP), contributed to Orlando's ambitious community revitalization effort in the Parramore neighborhood.

Given the consistency between SHIP goals and those of the Parramore project and Orlando's experience with developing partnerships and affordable housing initiatives, SHIP should have proven an effective tool. The initial findings demonstrate that housing programs need to be sufficiently flexible to permit a comprehensive approach to neighborhood revitalization. Such an approach should seek a balance between product‐based redevelopment and people‐based housing strategies, expand the role of community development corporations, and create housing choice.     

British Intelligence and the 1916 Mediation Mission of Colonel Edward M. House

Colonel Edward M. House, the close personal confidant of American President Woodrow Wilson, disembarked in Great Britain in January 1916 on a mission to bring the First World War to a close under the auspices of American mediation. Although his mission, which culminated in a secret pact between the United States and Great Britain known as the House-Grey Memorandum, has been studied by several scholars, the involvement of British intelligence with respect to that mission has never received more than cursory attention. Through a careful analysis of the surviving documents, this article reconstructs British intelligence's activities with respect to House's mission, examines the countermeasures that House employed as he attempted to protect the secrecy of his negotiations, delineates the role played by different British intelligence agencies and assesses their response to their findings.     

Democracy for the youth? The impact of mock elections on voting age attitudes

Should 16-year-olds be entitled to participate in elections? We theorize that mock elections for adolescents, who are not eligible to vote, affect the short-term support among the general public for lowering the voting age. To test our theoretical expectation, we utilize variation among municipalities in the organization of mock elections during the Danish local elections in 2009. Difference-in-difference estimates with data from the subsequent local elections in 2013 demonstrate that citizens in municipalities with mock elections for adolescents were more supportive of lowering the voting age and that their support was strongly rooted in ideological differences.     

Ethnic Heterogeneity and Public Support for Welfare: Is the American Experience Replicated in Britain,Sweden and Denmark?

The link between ethnic heterogeneity and public support for welfare policy is debated. The thesis of a negative relationship is supported by much American research. Historically the race issue has blocked a number of American welfare schemes; across the United States ethnically heterogeneous states have less generous benefits, and citizens having negative attitudes towards blacks often oppose welfare. The research question is: To what extent will increased ethnic heterogeneity in European countries establish the same mechanisms? Three theoretical positions are discussed: the position that the American experience is unique; the position that it is generalisable; and a middle position of it being contingent on institutional settings. The latter position predicts that the American experience can be avoided, especially in social democratic welfare regimes where the ethnicity issue has not been politicised. Empirically the article is based on survey data from the United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark, in which a number of American items were directly replicated. Despite indications of American uniqueness and welfare‐regime effects, the findings support the position that the in‐group/out‐group mechanisms found in the United States are being replicated in Europe.