Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This project will examine the role of deviance construction in shaping mobility for Black public housing residents in a public housing project from 1936 to 1974 in Atlanta. Deviance construction is defined both from above (through the inclusion and exclusion of certain types of household formations when determining eligibility for public assistance) and from below (through the marginalization of different household formations over time by locally-trained Black housing managers and social workers). This project uses archival survey data joined to a dataset on local, State, and Federal policies, along with census tract income and housing data to track the differences in Black mobility rates from public to private housing over time.