Moving up versus moving out: Neighborhood effects in housing mobility programs

Abstract

This article suggests ways to better design, conduct, and interpret evaluations of the effects of housing mobility programs on participants, with emphasis on how to isolate neighborhood effects. It reviews earlier critiques of neighborhood effects research and discusses the key assumptions of housing mobility programs—about the benefits of affluent neighbors, the spatial organization of opportunity for the urban poor, and the meanings of “neighborhood” to residents, researchers, and policy makers.

Studying mobility contexts, especially in suburban areas, offers special challenges to researchers. More research is needed that looks at residents’ social ties and uses mixed‐methods approaches. Ethnographic data, in particular, would enhance the validity of the quantitative data that now dominate studies of neighborhood effects. Adding substantially to what we know about the processes or mechanisms—the “how” of neighborhood effects—mixed‐methods approaches would also make research much more useful to policy makers and program managers.     

Comment on John T. Metzger's “planned abandonment: The neighborhood life‐cycle theory and national urban policy”

Abstract

I take strong exception to the idea that theories of neighborhood change, in and of themselves, caused the decline of inner cities. Rather, the demographic, social, and economic forces that existed in the postwar years caused some inner‐city neighborhoods to decline. The replacement of working‐class and middle‐income households by households with much lower incomes, on average, was the single biggest cause of neighborhood decline. Metzger ignores this fact as an alternative explanation for why some neighborhoods declined. It is highly implausible that my theories and those of other urban experts had such a strong impact on the public policy, building, and finance communities. Because people were responding to real conditions, it is likely that the same events would have occurred even if my model of neighborhood change had never been developed.     

The emergence of stable racially and ethnically diverse urban communities: A case study of nine U.S. cities

Abstract

We examine the characteristics of 14 stable racially and ethnically diverse urban communities in 9 U.S. cities and point to policies that could strengthen these communities and encourage the growth of more diverse neighborhoods in American cities. The cities examined are Chicago; Denver; Houston; Memphis, TN; Milwaukee; New York; Oakland, CA; Philadelphia; and Seattle. University researchers and community leaders in each city collaborated on the research for this project.

We identify two types of stable diverse communities, “self‐conscious” and “laissez‐faire,” which have evolved for different reasons and with different characteristics. Stable diverse communities will not just happen, but they can be influenced by a number of policy recommendations stemming from our research. These include helping individuals and organizations take leadership roles in their communities, strengthening and enforcing fair housing and antidiscrimination laws, earmarking economic resources to encourage neighborhood diversity, and creating community safety and jobs programs.     

Comment on Bruce J. Katz and Margery Austin Turner's “Who should run the housing voucher program? A reform proposal”: Why public housing authorities remain the best solution for running the housing voucher program

Abstract

Katz and Turner propose that the Section 8 program be administered regionally at the metropolitan level by a single organization awarded the contract through a competitive bidding process. We disagree. Local public housing authorities have been successful in providing family housing choice and moving families from the worst neighborhoods through the Section 8 program. The factors that inhibit mixed‐income communities and family mobility, resulting in concentration of poverty, are beyond the control of these authorities and will be affected little by a change in administration. Moreover, the additional cost of these changes would decrease the number of families served and at the same time increase bureaucracy.

We welcome the discussion the proposal has caused. Misperceptions exist about the program, even among those close to it. True, effective program reform can be engendered only by an honest dialogue among housing advocates, administrators, and consumers, both tenants and owners.     

Revitalizing inner‐city neighborhoods: New York city's Ten‐Year Plan

Abstract

This article examines the impact of New York City's Ten‐Year Plan on the sale prices of homes in surrounding neighborhoods. Beginning in the mid‐1980s, New York City invested $5.1 billion in constructing or rehabilitating over 180,000 units of housing in many of the city's most distressed neighborhoods. One of the main purposes was to spur neighborhood revitalization.

In this article, we describe the origins of the Ten‐Year Plan, as well as the various programs the city used to implement it, and estimate whether housing built or rehabilitated under the Ten‐Year Plan affected the prices of nearby homes. The prices of homes within 500 feet of Ten‐Year Plan units rose relative to those located beyond 500 feet, but still within the same census tract. These findings are consistent with the proposition that well‐planned project‐based housing programs can generate positive spillover effects and contribute to efforts to revitalize inner‐city neighborhoods.     

What Can We Learn About the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program by Looking at the Tenants?

Abstract

Several recent studies have found that homeownership has positive effects on children's development. This article extends these studies by testing whether these effects depend on neighborhood conditions. This extension is important because many low‐income families that become homeowners under current policies promoting homeownership for the poor are likely to purchase homes in troubled or distressed neighborhoods.

Homeownership in almost any neighborhood is found to benefit children, while neighborhood effects are weak. This suggests that the children of most low‐income renters would be better served by programs that help their families become homeowners in their current neighborhoods instead of helping them move to better neighborhoods while remaining renters. However, the positive effects of homeownership on children are weakened in distressed neighborhoods, especially those that are residentially unstable and poor. Thus, helping low‐income families purchase homes in good neighborhoods is likely to have the best effects on children.     

A typology of U.S. suburban places

Abstract

Suburbs are becoming increasingly diverse as they continue to comprise larger portions of the metropolitan population and employment. Former perceptions of suburban uniformity are being eroded by the variance in form and function that now characterizes them. This article analyzes data collected on 3,567 non‐central‐city, incorporated, metropolitan places in the United States along the dimensions of population, place, economy, and government. Specifically, a hierarchical clustering procedure, combined with discriminant analysis, identifies 10 distinct types of suburbs in the data.

Level, composition, and combinations of wealth, employment, and race drive the distinctions among suburban clusters, many of which do not fit our traditional characterizations of suburbia. In fact, only about half of all the suburbs considered are strongly characterized by these traditional traits, and these suburbs contain less than one out of every three residents considered in the analysis.     

Costly,Regressive, and Ineffective: How Sensitive Is Public Support for the Mortgage Interest Deduction in the United States?

ABSTRACT

Although the mortgage interest deduction enjoys broad public support, critics argue that the policy disproportionately benefits wealthy households, fails to expand homeownership opportunities to households on the margins, and costs the federal government an extraordinary amount of money in foregone tax revenue. Drawing on data collected through an online experiment, this analysis tests the sensitivity of public support to these critiques. The findings reveal that support for the mortgage interest deduction declines when respondents are presented with information about the cost, effectiveness, or distribution of benefits associated with the deduction. Support among renters is more sensitive to framing effects than that among homeowners. Republicans are less sensitive to framing effects than Democrats when the deduction is framed as distributing benefits unequally, but more sensitive to these effects when the issue is framed as costly. However, all groups register their lowest level of support when told that the mortgage interest deduction is not an effective tool for expanding ownership opportunities.     

Gated communities and the poor in Santiago,Chile: Functional and symbolic integration in a context of aggressive capitalist colonization of lower‐class areas

Abstract

In Santiago, Chile, the number of gated communities has increased significantly during the past few years. Although these communities are aimed at the elite, they are often located on the fringes of low‐income neighborhoods and thus change traditional segregation patterns in the city.

In many cases, gated housing communities for the upper classes are accompanied by nonresidential development, such as shopping centers and office complexes, which bring jobs into the neighborhood. We analyze case studies of lower‐class neighborhoods located near upper‐class gated communities to study the effect on the poor. We find that the spatial dispersion of real estate developments for the elite promotes some forms of social integration and provides advantages to poorer residents by bringing jobs into the neighborhood, triggering improved public services, and even sparking a renewed sense of pride among lower‐class residents.     

The New Neighborhood Policy of the EU: An Appropriate Response to the Arab Spring?

This article analyzes the extent, substance, and underlying objectives of the European Union's (EU) new neighborhood policy in response to the Arab Spring. It questions whether the new policy approach constitutes a major policy shift or is just “old wine in new wineskins.” The article discusses the causes for much continuity and limited change in the new policy from a neo-institutionalist perspective. It concludes that both continuity and change primarily result from constraints inherent to the EU. In particular, the interaction between the Commission and the Council shapes a policy that corresponds with the normative aspirations and realist interests of the EU but hardly with the needs and expectations of the partner states.