Publications

Mixite, diversity: pertinent notions ? : presentation de la pleniere [VO] / George Galster. In Mixite : an urban and housing issue? Mixing people, housing and activities as urban challenge of the future, 23eme colloque international de l'European Network for Housing Research (ENHR), organise par le Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Solidarites, Societes, Territoires (LISST) a l'Universite Toulouse II-Le Mirail, 5-8 juillet 2011. The first plenary session will go on to question the foundations of the concept of diversity. What are the possible definitions ? How can we come to terms with the fact that currently, diversity so forcibly structures public discourse and action in the field of housing and habitat ? What does diversity encompass ? How can we measure it? What is its goal ? Leaving aside the fact that one can question the very substance of the notion of diversity, we must shed light on its ideological underpinnings in order to better understand the controversy it elicits in academic circles. The relevance of diversity in terms of the problems it is meant to address seems indeed to be scrutinized in regards to the values and political models of the societies that choose to use this concept.

This paper theoretically investigates filtering in urban housing markets: how the process occurs and the degree to which its outcomes are beneficial. Central to the framework presented is the partitioning of the urban housing market into submarkets that are segmented by quality. Within each submarket there is latitude for independent adjustments of demand and supply, and submarkets are interconnected by the actions of households, converters of new dwellings, and builders of new dwellings. Forces impinging on one submarket create signals there that eventually lead to systematic, but nonuniform repercussions, potentially throughout the submarket array. It is these dynamics of intersubmarket adjustments of demanders and suppliers that illuminate filtering.

In any given year, more than 6 out of 10 children in the United States are exposed to some form of violence in the neighborhood, at school, or within the home; half of these children experience polyvictimization, or exposure to multiple forms of violence. Despite widespread concern about childhood exposure to violence, researchers continue to have remarkable gaps in their knowledge about causal pathways that link exposure to neighborhood or community violence and the short- and long-term consequences on the safety and well-being of low-income, minority children. Notably absent from contemporary scholarly and policy debates on such exposure are the voices of community practitioners and community practice scholars. In this article, we identify the major theoretical and empirical challenges associated with conducting this line of community research. Next, we assess the state of the current theoretical and empirical research related to neighborhood and community effects on childhood exposure to violence and an array of childhood outcomes. We then specify the empirical and practical knowledge needed to advance the field of community practice in this area. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the policy and practice implications associated with the inclusion of a "community practice voice" in addressing childhood exposure to neighborhood violence.

This paper analyses the relative merits of demand‐side and supply‐side strategies for attacking the housing problems faced by low‐income renters. The analysis is distinctive in that it takes seriously the emerging consensus among international housing scholars about the centrality of housing quality sub‐market dynamics and spatial considerations. Received theory about the nature of housing sub‐markets and their adjustments to policy interventions is used to critique previous evaluations of supply‐and demand‐side approaches and to provide fresh insights into their ability to achieve a wide variety of programmatic goals. Numerous dimensions of spatial considerations—externalities, area‐wide abandonment and revitalisation, local reinvestment psychology, racial and economic integration and freedom of household locational choice—are applied to a further consideration of these two strategies, again using several alternative goals. Finally, the paper argues for the importance of context‐driven housing policy formulation. Problem definition, goal weighting, and metropolitan housing market, socio‐economic, and governmental characteristics collectively must be considered before an unambiguously ‘best’ housing strategy can be identified. Nevertheless, the paper concludes that, with the typical context, the demand‐side approach is superior to the supply‐side approach.

No abstract is provided for this article.

This paper introduces the special issue on The Global Crisis in Housing Affordability in the International Journal of Urban Sciences in 2021. It provides the motivation of the special issue, and discusses main topics covered by papers in this issue, including a review of the current literature and conceptual discussions, the extent of housing affordability problems in both developed and developing countries, causes and consequences of these problems, and evaluations of policy measures.

Springboard or Flypaper? Port-of-Entry Neighbourhood and the Economic Success of Refugees in Sweden

An econometric model is specified in which an individual’s income and the income mix of the neighbourhood in which the individual resides are endogenous, thus providing a holistic model of phenomena that previously have been fragmented into neighbourhood effects and neighbourhood selection literatures. To overcome the biases from selection and endogeneity, the parameters of this model are estimated using instrumental variables in a fixed-effect panel analysis employing annual data on 90 438 working-age males in Stockholm over the 1995–2006 period. Evidence is found of both neighbourhood effects and neighbourhood selection, but more importantly, it is found that the magnitudes of these effects are substantially altered when taking selection and endogeneity biases into account, compared with when only controlling for selection. When taking endogeneity into account, the apparent impact of neighbourhood income mix on individual income is magnified and the effect of individual income on the percentage of high income in the neighbourhood is magnified.

This powerful new theoretical approach to analyzing urban housing problems and the policies designed to rectify them will be a vital resource for urban planners, developers, policymakers, and economists. The search for the roots of serious urban housing problems such as homelessness, abandonment, rent burdens, slums, and gentrification has traditionally focused on the poorest sector of the housing market. The findings set forth in this volume show that the roots of such problems lie in the relationships among different parts of the market—not solely within the lower-quality portion—though that is where problems are most dramatically manifested and housing reforms are myopically focused. The authors propose a new understanding of the market structure characterized by a closely interrelated array of quality submarkets. Their comprehensive models ground a unified theory that accounts for demand by both renters and owner occupants, supply by owners of existing dwellings, changes in the stock of housing due to conversions and new construction, and interactions across submarkets.

The Metropolis in Black and White highlights a stark fact: America's metropolitan areas are more polarized along racial lines than at any time since the mid-1960s. Though urban areas have become multicultural, the editors argue that black-white racial differences will outlast ethnic differences in metropolitan America and that the race issue in most urban areas is perceived as a black-white one. Galster and Hill perceive that the theme of place, power, and polarization is most powerful when blacks and whites are contrasted. African Americans, on average, are the poorest, most segregated, most disadvantaged urban racial (or ethnic) group, because they are deeply entangled in the web of interrelationships connecting place, power, and polarization. Since these interrelationships form a comprehensive set of social structures that oppress African Americans, they can be judged to be racist at their core. Race, not merely class, continues to play a pivotal role in shaping urban African Americans. In clear analyses, the contributors examine employment, income, the underclass, education, housing, health and mortality, political participation, and racial politics. Intertwined themes of spatial isolation, political empowerment, and racial disparities-place, power, and polarization-guide the analyses. Thisis a vital text for courses in urban affairs, American studies, economics, geography, sociology, political science, urban planning, and racial and ethnic studies. In clear analyses, the contributors examine employment, income, the underclass, education, housing, health and mortality, political participation, and racial politics. Intertwined themes of spatial isolation, political empowerment, and racial disparities-place, power, and polarization-guide the analyses. This is a vital text for courses in urban affairs, American studies, economics, geography, sociology, political science, urban planning, and racial and ethnic studies.

This paper uses an exploratory regression model to discern whether subsidized housing has had any independent association with changes in neighborhood racial composition in Yonkers, New York. Using data from all Yonkers census tracts for 1970 to 1980, the model shows that, all else equal, a higher increase in the percentage of blacks in a tract was associated with both the prior existence of subsidized (especially family-occupied) housing and the construction of such units during the decade. On average, one-third of the observed increase in the percentage of black residents in tracts having subsidized construction during the 1970s can be so attributed. However, projections based on the model suggest that the proposed court-ordered subsidized housing for Yonkers would yield from 1990 to 2000 only a minimal increase in the percentage of black residents in the affected tracts.

This article develops a model that relates decadal changes in neighborhood poverty rates to metropolitan‐wide economic changes and the neighborhood's demographic profile, predetermined poverty rate, and locational characteristics. The model is estimated for the 1980–1990 period using metropolitan census tracts as proxies for neighborhoods. This national sample of tracts is stratified into predominantly white, African‐American, Hispanic, and mixed subsamples. Results indicate that only a few variables consistently predict growth in neighborhood poverty: overall job availability; the age composition of neighborhood residents; the proportion of nonmarried households; and the neighborhood's 1979 poverty rate. Other variables have distinctly different coefficients depending on the racial‐ethnic subsample. These coefficients include segregation, welfare benefits, the location of manufacturing employment, and availability of automobiles. We conclude that studies that focus solely on African‐American poverty neighborhoods fail to recognize common patterns across all neighborhoods and to discern unique features of neighborhoods inhabited predominantly by non‐African Americans.

It is clear that an accurate assessment of the future housing needs of urban Americans must be founded upon an understanding of households' perceptions of desirable dwellings and residential environments. Only if families can successfully obtain the type of unit and neighborhood aspired to can a reasonable degree of societal contentment be expected. Although several economic and sociological studies have explored many of the determinants of these housing preferences, insufficient attention has been given to a crucial remaining factor, especially where urban housing policy is concerned--the race of the household. It is in this context that the paper tests the hypothesis that blacks possess preferences for the various components of the housing package which are distinctly different from those of comparable whites.

It is often alleged that households moving into neighborhoods with the aid of housing choice vouchers (HCVs) raise crime rates there. We use 1999–2008 quarterly data from Chicago census tracts to test this allegation with a dynamic panel model designed to overcome the challenges of omitted variable and endogeneity biases. We find no support for the proposition that growth in HCV holders leads to growth in violent crime rates, regardless of neighborhood context. We find that growth in HCV holders is positively associated with growth in property crime rates, however, in higher poverty neighborhoods or if HCVs exceed a threshold concentration.

This study estimates the size and characteristics of the potential homeowner market and examines the relative default risks associated with expanded homeownership among lower-income, underserved households.

:The authors argue that race neutral policies will be inadquate to overcome the historical momentum of race conscious behaviors and stereotypes that perpetuate segregation; explicitly race conscious policies that take account of the dynamics of racial transition will be needed. Such policies are socially desirable because they break a key link in a self-perpetuating cycle of racial inequality and prejudice and can be accomplished in ways that do not contradict other social goals. A detailed case study of Shaker Heights, Ohio, shows how these interventions can be efficacious and avoid creating negative side effects.

Scholars have long debated the relative merits of site-based, subsidized housing owned and operated by a public entity or by the private sector. This is the first study to classify long-term residential trajectories of nationally representative low-income households in the United States by their initial assisted housing status. We employ a matched sequence analysis of neighborhood poverty and racial trajectories of low-income households in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics who formed during 1988-1992. Among households carefully matched by their demographic and economic attributes, we find that those first forming households in public housing spend much longer durations over the subsequent 20 years in poorer, minority-dominant neighborhoods than similar households first forming in market-rate housing. In contrast, forming a household in private site-based subsidized housing is associated with superior neighborhood socioeconomic (but not desegregated racial composition) trajectories compared to starting in market-rate housing. Implications for housing policy are discussed.

This powerful new theoretical approach to analyzing urban housing problems and the policies designed to rectify them will be a vital resource for urban planners, developers, policymakers, and economists. The search for the roots of serious urban housing problems such as homelessness, abandonment, rent burdens, slums, and gentrification has traditionally focused on the poorest sector of the housing market. The findings set forth in this volume show that the roots of such problems lie in the relationships among different parts of the market—not solely within the lower-quality portion—though that is where problems are most dramatically manifested and housing reforms are myopically focused. The authors propose a new understanding of the market structure characterized by a closely interrelated array of quality submarkets. Their comprehensive models ground a unified theory that accounts for demand by both renters and owner occupants, supply by owners of existing dwellings, changes in the stock of housing due to conversions and new construction, and interactions across submarkets.