Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Changing Places, Changing Outcomes: The Links Between Mixed Income Housing, Neighborhood Change, and Opportunity

(Housing and Community Development)

Recent protests in Ferguson and Baltimore have led to a resurgence in interest in the role of place in shaping the life chances of poor, predominately minority households. In neighborhoods like Sandtown, Baltimore, conditions of racial segregation, concentrated poverty, and poor school quality converge, making the issue of economic mobility a “local” problem. But what happens when public and private investments are directed to these communities? Do policies that seek to reinvest in poor neighborhoods and revive private market investment improve the landscape of opportunity for the urban poor? Despite decades of public and private sector efforts to turn around places like Sandtown, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of whether place-based initiatives transform neighborhood conditions and improve opportunity structures for poor families. The three papers in this panel address this gap in the literature by examining the impact of mixed-income housing on neighborhood opportunity structures. The first two papers focus on the legacy of HOPE VI, one of the largest federal efforts to address the problem of concentrated poverty through mixed-income housing. HOPE VI directed $6.7 billion in federal funding to 261 distressed public housing developments in 129 cities, yet to date, there has been no comprehensive evaluation of these investments or their impacts on the surrounding neighborhoods. The first paper, “Taking Stock of HOPE VI: Unit Production and Resident Services, 1992-2014,” provides the first comprehensive examination of the implementation of HOPE VI across the country. It reveals the diversity of approaches to mixed-income redevelopment that were undertaken as part of the program and provides important insights into what mixed-income means in practice. The second paper, “The Impact of HOPE VI Redevelopment on Neighborhood Change,” uses quasi-experimental methods to assess whether HOPE VI served to catalyze broader neighborhood improvements that shape economic opportunities for poor families. The third paper, “Mixed-Income Housing and Neighborhood Change: The Cases of Chicago and Los Angeles,” broadens the focus to four types of mixed income housing: low income housing tax credit development; HOPE VI projects; regulation-mandated units (inclusionary zoning, rent control or stabilization); and unsubsidized, naturally occurring affordable housing. It examines whether these mixed-income housing projects changed the trajectory of neighborhood conditions, and assesses whether those changes influenced existing residents’ ability and willingness to stay in the neighborhood. Together, the papers in this panel provide important insights into a question that has been difficult to answer: do place-based investments in mixed-income housing work to transform neighborhood opportunity structures? The research presented in this panel thus has direct relevance for mixed-income housing policy as well as other place-based interventions such as Choice and Promise Neighborhoods and the Community Reinvestment Act.