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Established in 2017, Opportunity Zones (OZs) promised to spur investment in undercapitalized communities. Early evaluations find that OZs have had nominal effects on employment and real estate outcomes. Distressed community development, however, has historically been driven by affordable housing production. Conceptually, developers can stack OZs with the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), the nation’s largest program for affordable housing. Therefore, this study seeks to estimate whether OZs have increased affordable housing production. First, we scan press announcements and OZ-tracking websites through July 2022 to document evidence of OZ-financed affordable housing. Second, we use a difference-in-differences approach to compare LIHTC outcomes through 2018 in OZs with areas that were OZ-eligible but not designated. We find only 60 examples of OZs supporting affordable housing projects across the country. We also find that OZs do not have statistically significant effects on LIHTC outcomes. We document findings from 16 interviews conducted in 2019 and 2020 to contextualize why OZs are failing to stimulate affordable housing production. In conclusion, we discuss how OZs could be modified to better encourage affordable housing, but we also reflect on whether such modifications would be desirable for goals of efficiency and distressed community development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federal housing programs in rapidly urbanizing countries like India are targeting the expansion of low-income housing stocks. However, most of these large-scale low-income housing developments occur in the urban peripheries, and they are cut off from opportunities and essential urban infrastructure. They not only indicate policy failure but also exacerbate urban segregation in growing cities. Federal policies to tackle these problems in India are geared toward relatively small-scale mixed-income initiatives like inclusionary housing and public-private partnerships. Evaluating these efforts based on four cases in the city of Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, this paper expands the literature on social-mix and mixed-income housing initiatives that is dominated by studies from the Global North. It identifies multi-pronged approaches to address (1) the failure of the current Indian federal policy involving small-scale mixed-income initiatives, and (2) the need to integrate housing initiatives with urban development at multiple levels, especially in the urban peripheries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the developed world has almost completed the process of urbanization, developing countries are still rapidly urbanizing. Applying the extended stochastic regression on population, affluence, and technology (STIRPAT) model for the period 2000–2019, this article is an endeavor to explore the consequences of urbanization along with gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow, trade openness, and mobile phone penetration on carbon dioxide emissions in 68 low-income and lower-middle-income countries across Asia, Africa, Middle East, and South America. Initially, the study used a panel unit root test to identify whether the variables are stationary or not. Subsequently, by using the co-integration test, a long-run association among the variables was seen. Finding a long-run relationship, the fully modified ordinary least squares method was applied to examine the impact of urbanization and other explanatory variables on carbon dioxide emissions. Results showed that urbanization followed by GDP per capita are the key promoters of CO2 emissions across all countries, whereas the direction and significance of inward FDI and trade openness varied across regions. Furthermore, it was observed that mobile phone penetration (as an indicator of information and communication technology [ICT]) has a significant and negative relationship with CO2 emissions, showing that ICT-based technologies might be the answer to decoupling economic growth from emissions growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For 3 decades, U.S. federal housing policies have sought to increase access to socially diverse and high opportunity neighborhoods and improve the quality of life for low-income families. Absent from current discussions of the costs and benefits of socially mixed communities is the potential value that they may have to low-income families seeking to purchase their own homes. In this paper, we examine the extent to which participation in homebuyer education and counseling programs supports sustainable low-income homeownership in socially mixed neighborhoods. Using quasi-experimental methodologies and longitudinal data from the Denver Housing Study for a sample of 533 low-income homebuyers, this study examines whether, compared with a comparison group of public housing residents who purchased homes on their own, participants in Denver Housing Authority's (DHA) homebuyer education and counseling program (HOP) were (1) more likely to purchase homes in socially mixed destination neighborhoods; and (2) sustain homeownership over time. Results show that low-income homebuyers purchased homes in destination neighborhoods characterized by considerable ethnic and income mix. When compared to non-HOP homebuyers, HOP homebuyers also were better off in terms of 2018 home value appreciation and fewer foreclosures, suggesting that homebuyer education and counseling improves long-term sustainability of homeownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of social mix has been thoroughly examined in the housing literature. Research to date finds little evidence of encounters between socially diverse residents living in mixed settings. This paper provides comparative insights into new, socially mixed housing initiatives in Milan and Paris that have been conceived to promote encounters among diverse residents. Both initiatives, implemented by not-for-profit organizations, provide affordable housing for university students or young professionals in low-income social housing neighborhoods in exchange for their commitment to organize solidarity activities with and for their social housing neighbors. The paper examines how frameworks provided by housing practitioners for "intentional" encounters between motivated youth and low-income residents shape these encounters and considers the receptivity of the youth population to intentionally engage in common projects across diversity. It distils some core conditions within these programs that promote encounters among diverse residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States after the Great Recession, despite growing attention to low-income households' homeownership vulnerability, the existing works tend to take specific angles and produce only piecemeal evidence. By placing liquid assets' function of mediating financial hardships in the context of homeownership dynamics, I establish a synthesized conceptual framework. Based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), I put this framework to a test and find that liquid assets not only reduce the risk of homeownership exit in general but play a pivotal role in accounting for low-income borrowers' elevated rates of exit. I discuss policy implications of the findings at the end of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most prominent topics in scholarship on touristification and gentrification is displacement, including not only direct physical displacement, but also the emotional and social impacts associated with indirect displacement. Although research on touristification and gentrification has begun to examine the experiences and perceptions of residents undergoing displacement in low-income urban neighborhoods, it has paid less attention to the spatial characteristics of indirect displacement and the distinctive characteristics of displacement associated specifically with tourism. In Gamcheon Culture Village (GCV) in Busan, South Korea, touristification and commercial gentrification have generated limited direct physical displacement of residents and business owners spatially concentrated in areas adjacent to the main tourist thoroughfare. However, indirect displacement in the sense of displacement pressure and un-homing has a more widespread and complex presence within the community, depending in part on residents' proximity to tourist activity. In addition, tourism-induced displacement can create dimensions of un-homing less common in typical gentrifying neighborhoods. Our findings suggest a need both for more comparative empirical research on indirect displacement and for urban policies attentive to un-homing associated with touristification and gentrification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions have been raised about the wisdom of low-income homeownership policies for many reasons. One potential reason to be skeptical: low-income homebuyers perhaps may be constrained to purchase homes in disadvantaged neighborhoods. This is a potential problem because home purchases in such neighborhoods: (1) may limit appreciation; (2) may reduce quality of life for adults; and (3) may militate against reputed advantages of homeownership for children. Our study examines the neighborhood conditions of a group of 126 low-income homebuyers who purchased their first home with assistance from the Home Ownership Program (HOP) operated by the Denver Housing Authority. Our approach is distinguished by its use of a comprehensive set of objective and subjective indicators measuring the neighborhood quality of pre-move and post-move neighborhoods. Do low-income homebuyers sacrifice neighborhood quality to buy their homes? Our results suggest that the answer to this question is more complex than it might at first appear. On the one hand, HOP homebuyers purchased in a wide variety of city and suburban neighborhoods. Nonetheless, a variety of neighborhood quality indicators suggest that these neighborhoods, on average, were indeed inferior to those of Denver homeowners overall and to those in the same ethnic group. However, our analyses also revealed that their post-move neighborhoods were superior to the ones they lived in prior to homeownership. Moreover, very few HOP destination neighborhoods evinced severe physical, environmental, infrastructural, or socioeconomic problems, as measured by a wide variety of objective indicators or by the homebuyers' own perceptions. Indeed, only 10% of HOP homebuyers perceived that their new neighborhoods were worse than their prior ones, and only 8% held pessimistic expectations about their new neighborhoods' quality of life. Finally, we found that Black homebuyers fared less well than their Latino counterparts, on average, in both objective and subjective measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the external neighborhood effects of Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Projects built in Santa Clara County, California from 1987 to 2000. Three types of developers have built LIHTC projects in this area: nonprofit, for-profit, and a county public housing authority. Using a difference-in-difference hedonic regression approach, this study finds that almost all the LIHTC projects examined have generated significantly positive impacts on nearby property value. In particular, the study also finds that most nonprofit projects have delivered benefits similar to those of for-profit projects. Yet projects built by some of the largest nonprofits and the county housing authority have generated the greatest neighborhood impacts. Low-income neighborhoods have also benefited more from LIHTC developments than other types of neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighborhood poverty experienced over time by low-income households is a topic of increasing interest and public policy importance. We employ sequence analysis of neighborhood poverty rates to identify distinct patterns among the 18- to 22-year longitudinal residential trajectories of 389 low-income households in the United States who formed households during 1988–1992, as represented in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Our most striking finding is the important role of poverty in their first neighborhood to the probability that low-income households ultimately reside in neighborhoods with higher poverty rates. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there are a wide variety of neighborhood poverty trajectories that low-income American households experience. However, those with felicitous neighborhood trajectories were almost entirely White households. The majority of Blacks formed households in high-poverty neighborhoods and were unlikely to live in any other sort of neighborhood for the next two decades when they are typically raising children. In addition, both in-place neighborhood changes and residential mobility have likely led to this racial variation in low-income neighborhood trajectories. We contribute to the evidence base about the role of place in perpetuating socioeconomic and racial inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT: This study contributes to the debate about tolls' equity impacts by examining the potential economic costs of tolling for low-income and non-low-income households. Using data from the Puget Sound metropolitan region in Washington State and geographic information systems methods to map driving routes from home to work, we examine car ownership and transportation patterns among low-income and non-low-income households. We follow standard practice of estimating tolls' potential impact only on households with workers who would drive on tolled and nontolled facilities. We then redo the analysis including broader groups of households. We find that the degree of regressivity is quite sensitive to the set of households included in the analysis. The results suggest that distributional analyses of tolls should estimate impacts on all households in the relevant region in addition to impacts on just users of roads that are currently tolled or likely to be tolled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments implemented eviction moratoria to prevent landlords from removing tenants due to unpaid rent. Rather than reduce evictions, what if these new tenant protections merely shifted the tactics used by landlords to displace tenants? This study draws on an original survey, administrative data, and in-depth interviews with low-income tenants to uncover the changing role of formal and informal evictions and eviction tactics during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings indicate that the moratorium was associated with fewer formal evictions and eviction tactics, but this coincided with a higher prevalence of informal evictions and eviction tactics. Landlords unable to use housing courts to formally evict a tenant turned to informal, and often illegal, actions to remove tenants. These findings highlight the importance of measuring informal evictions and eviction tactics and the limitations of eviction moratoria in protecting low-income renters from displacement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the experience of school closure as narrated by youth in survey responses and as evident in school-level characteristics drawn from publicly available data during the 2010–2012 years of district reform in Cleveland, Ohio. Among ninth-grade students reporting closure of their K–8 schools, closed-ended survey data suggest nearly half of the students reporting ease in transitioning schools following school closure. Open-ended data offer a more nuanced story, with some students narrating loss of relationships, sense of uprooting, and emotional upset and others describing a fresh start, new friends, and discovery of self in the transition. Survey data also indicate regularity of changing schools and transportation challenges. A study of publicly available data, comparing student characteristics at the school level between receiving and non-receiving schools, indicates that schools that received students following closures were less likely to graduate students on time and were more likely to discipline students. Receiving schools were more likely to serve students who were identified as having cognitive, learning, and emotional disabilities. Though survey data portray both struggle and resilience, the study of student characteristics in schools receiving students displaced by closure suggests considerable strain on receiving schools, revealing conditions exacerbated in school closure for students of color, poor students, and students with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The federal government attempts to reduce the spatial concentration of the poor through the implementation of its many housing initiatives, guiding recipients toward economically integrated neighborhoods. Merging HMDA, GSE, and Census 2000 data, this analysis assesses the extent to which the government's homebuyer finance programs have accomplished the deconcentration of the poor. The research finds that the expected benefits of various forms of housing assistance have not fully materialized. The efforts to help very low-income homebuyers are helping these households move into economically integrated neighborhoods but the movement toward this economic integration, especially by racial and ethnic minorities, has fallen short of distributing these households in a manner that parallels the availability of affordable housing in the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Do the geographic contexts in which disadvantaged children are raised influence whether they have difficulties in elementary school? We address this question by estimating Cox proportional hazard models with instrumental variable measures of context, using data for 410 low-income Latino and African American children who lived in Denver public housing before age six. The Denver Housing Authority's procedure for allocating families to dwellings mimics random assignment, thus offering an unusual natural experiment for measuring context effects isolated from geographic selection bias. We find that several socioeconomic and demographic contextual indicators are statistically and substantively important predictors of low-income Latino and African American children's difficulties in elementary school, though sometimes in nonlinear and interactive ways. Generally, the hazard of being assigned to special education classes, suspended, or forced to repeat a grade is greater in neighborhoods with higher occupational prestige and percentages of immigrants and lower in those with higher percentages of African American residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New York has devised a variety of policy approaches to improve the housing status of low-income households, including public housing, publicly subsidized private housing, rent vouchers, welfare shelter allowances, rent regulation, and tax incentives to landlords. Little systematic attention has been paid to how these various subtenures compare when judged by the housing outcomes they produce for low-income households in the city. Using data from the 1996 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey, this article compares New York City’s rental subtenures in terms of the following outcomes: housing quality, crowding, affordability, residential mobility/stability, and various indicators of neighborhood quality. Adjusting for differences in household and housing stock characteristics, we find that the tenant-based Section 8 program seems to produce the best set of overall outcomes for low-income renters in the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: Housing mobility programs intend to improve the well-being of low-income families by changing the neighborhood environment in which they live, and thereby creating access to a new set of opportunities and resources. Using data collected in a study of the Gautreaux Two (G2) Housing Mobility program, which offered housing vouchers to public housing residents in Chicago to move to lower-poverty and less segregated 'opportunity' neighborhoods, this article explores families' access to programs and services for their children in the neighborhoods where they move. The analysis is based on a sample of 46 families who moved through the G2 program. Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with mothers in four waves, which started when the family still lived in public housing. The results show that almost three-quarters of the families utilized activities for their children in the baseline neighborhoods, but mothers also expressed concerns about the safety and lack of program variety available in these disadvantaged neighborhoods. After moving through the G2 program, only one-third of the children in these families are using activities. The decline in activity participation is especially steep for children in families that move to areas outside of the city. Although few mothers are concerned with safety or the variety of programs available, several report barriers to activities for children in the new neighborhood, including fewer programs for low-income children, high cost, transportation difficulties, and issues finding daycare or preschool for younger children. Some children continue to use activities in the old neighborhood and some families end up making subsequent moves to nonqualifying neighborhoods. These findings suggest that activity participation is important for many low-income families, and losing access to these activities upon moving through the G2 program may limit children's exposure to the new neighborhood and contribute to subsequent moves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As access to information technology (IT) and the ability to use it increasingly become part of the toolkit necessary to participate and prosper in an information-based society, many fear that the IT revolution is bypassing low-income, urban communities. In the absence of comprehensive public or private efforts to close the technology gap, community technology centers (CTCs) have emerged at the grassroots level. The purpose of this article is to describe the work CTCs are doing to address the economic and social impacts of the shift to an information society. In addition, we develop a typology of CTCs by organizational type and programmatic goal that is helpful in conceptualizing CTCs. This exploratory work is an important first step that must occur before answering tougher questions concerning their effectiveness, outcomes, and capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In both its historical Progressive Era roots and its contemporary manifestations, U.S. urban progressivism has evinced a contradictory tendency toward promoting the interests of capital and property while ostensibly protecting labor and tenants, thus producing policies that undermine its central claims. This article interrogates past and present appeals to urban progressive politics, particularly around housing and planning, and offers an in-depth case study of one of the most highly touted examples of the new urban progressivism: New York City’s recently adopted Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program. This case serves to identify the ways in which progressive rhetoric can disguise neoliberal policies. The article concludes with a discussion of legally viable housing policy alternatives that would challenge inequalities without producing gentrification. Given neoprogressivism’s ideological slipperiness, it is crucial for analysts, policymakers, and social movement actors to look beyond rhetorical claims to “progressive” politics and ask the questions: progress for whom, toward what? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the social capital available to low-income households which were relocated to different types of neighborhoods with the HOPE VI program, an initiative aimed at redeveloping U.S. public housing developments into mixed-income communities. Along with improving the living environment, HOPE VI is thought to improve residents' access to social capital by changing the economic mix of their neighborhoods. This article contributes evidence from multivariate analyses of survey data of Boston HOPE VI residents in their post-HOPE VI neighborhoods. Findings indicate that rather than neighborhood socioeconomic mix, neighborhood resources, such as libraries, recreation facilities, parks, grocery stores, and social services, followed by place attachment and feelings of safety, were the strongest predictors of social capital. A discussion of why neighborhood resources may be so important for social capital is presented, and implications for policies aimed at improving poverty neighborhoods and low-income people's access to social capital are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the changes in neighborhood quality in communities where low-income buyers have recently purchased homes. Three questions are addressed: Do lower-income buyers buy in higher quality neighborhoods than the ones in which they rented? Are lower-income buyers locating in higher quality neighborhoods than a comparison group of continuing renters? Are the neighborhoods of new buyers improving or deteriorating relative to those of continuing renters? Results of an analysis of a sample of persons who graduated from home buyer education classes in eight cities indicate that home buyers located in neighborhoods that were similar in quality to those in which they rented. Continuing renters in the sample, however, improved the quality of the neighborhoods between the first and second surveys, while home buyers did not. Finally, while the neighborhoods to which new buyers moved are improving, they are doing so at a slower rate than both the neighborhoods from which they moved and those of the continuing renters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have called attention to how neighborhood organizations can help people in low-income neighborhoods who face risks of social exclusion. This study examines how different types of neighborhood organizations broker resources for the urban poor. We investigate how neighborhood organizations employ linking social capital (vertical networks) and organizational ties (horizontal networks). Furthermore, we discuss the process of organizational brokerage and through which mechanisms neighborhood organizations make resources accessible. Qualitative field work was conducted in a faith-based organization, a professional welfare organization and a volunteer organization. Our findings demonstrate that organizations broker resources in different ways, and that mechanisms of organizational brokerage complement each other. We further show how neighborhood organizations play an important role in connecting people from low-income neighborhoods to main institutions such as the labor market and welfare bureaucracies. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for neighborhood effects studies and policy, and what the study's limitations are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large and influential group of American scholars studying urban and low-income housing policy have coalesced around the central idea that the best way to ameliorate the plague of urban poverty in the United States is to disperse (or deconcentrate) the urban poor into wealthier (usually outlying suburban) neighborhoods. This article refers to this group of scholars as the Dispersal Consensus (or DC for short). It finds that the DC's zeal to promote dispersal policies leads many of its members to engage in suspect and problematic practices, both in their research and policy prescription efforts. Such findings suggest that the DC's near hegemonic influence over the academic discourse of American urban and low-income housing policy should be challenged. This challenge will help stimulate a more open and productive debate regarding how best to ameliorate urban poverty (and related social problems) in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suggests that the traditional emphasis on homeownership as a criterion for stability and thriving families and communities may be replaced when dealing with housing for disadvantaged populations. Study conducted by the authors; What study revealed about low income families and homeownership; Financial costs and benefits of ownership; Information on Cleveland's Housing Network's (CHN) leasing-purchase program; Clients' perspective of CHN's lease-purchase program.

Inclusionary zoning—requiring and encouraging developers to build some affordable housing in market-rate projects—is a growing but deeply contested practice. We evaluate the experience of inclusionary zoning programs in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, including their structure and elements, effectiveness in delivering affordable housing, and effect on housing markets and supply, to address the debate. We find that the programs vary but are not heavily demanding and include cost offsets. Low in-lieu fees, however, can be the weak link. Many of the mandatory programs are effective, if effectiveness is measured by comparing the affordable housing productivity of inclusionary zoning with other affordable housing programs. We found no statistically significant evidence of inclusionary zoning's adverse effect on housing supply in cities with inclusionary mandates. We conclude that critics underestimate the affordable housing productivity of inclusionary zoning, and overestimate its adverse effects on housing supply. Nonetheless, inclusionary zoning is no panacea and needs to be part of a comprehensive housing strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expanding the scope of existing segregation literature, this research compares racial/ethnic segregation across economic classes and class segregation across racial/ethnic groups at two anchor locations of individual life: residence and workplace. Using the 2015 U.S. Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics data for the Los Angeles region, we depict a complicated picture: Segregation is moderate in the study area, but minority and/or low-income workers experience additional segregation on top of racial/ethnic segregation at residence. Specifically, the levels of segregation at residence are positively correlated with the segregation levels at workplace; racial/ethnic segregation is more severe at residence, while class segregation is more severe at the workplace, particularly for racial minorities; racial/ethnic segregation is the highest in the low-income group but lowest in the low-medium income group; class segregation in White workers is lower than that in Black and Asian workers at workplace but greater at residence. Therefore, policies that aim to effectively mitigate segregation should leverage intricate social environments at different spatial settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first three decades after the Second World War in Europe millions of dwellings were built, in most cases on large estates in or near cities. At that time, many people in various kinds of household found these estates attractive and were happy to live on them. But, in the last two decades, in many parts of Europe social, economic, and physical problems have emerged and the reputation of the estates has suffered a deep decline. That is not to say that they have lost their function in the housing market: some groups might still be drawn to them—low-income households who cannot find a decent, affordable place elsewhere, for example. In this article, we describe the current position of these estates in the housing careers of specific groups. Are there some groups who find them attractive places in which to live? Or do most people want to get away as soon as they can? Are some people “trapped”? We show that the situation differs substantially between parts of Europe, but even per estate and per household category. Our findings imply that intervention strategies with regard to these estates will have to become much more differentiated than they currently are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars suggest that children’s built and social environments play key roles in their physical activity (PA) levels and subsequent propensity toward obesity. This study examines the associations between neighborhood constructs and the race and income disparities in PA and health among children ages 10–17 years in the United States. Using the 2011–2012 National Survey of Children’s Health and a series of logistic and ordinary least squares regressions, this study compares obesity and PA levels of Black, Hispanic, and low-income children with their White and more affluent counterparts, interacting demographic and neighborhood characteristics with one another. Findings reveal that non-White respondents report having more amenities and more detractions; low-income respondents report having fewer amenities and more detractions; and non-White and low-income respondents report having less social cohesion. Additionally, though amenities and cohesion improve PA and health and detractions have the reverse effect, these effects are opposite for Black, Hispanic, and low-income children. Black children with more cohesion and Hispanic children with more amenities and fewer detractions have greater odds of being obese. Findings underscore the need for improved physical and social environments in non-White and low-income communities, as well as targeted initiatives to educate parents and children on obesity and healthful activities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focuses on the challenges that American nonprofit organizations encounter regarding the management of their low income housing units. Importance of property and asset management; Efforts of nonprofit organizations to improve their management of such facilities.

Analyzes the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 by examining the outcomes of CRA agreements in the United States. Comparison of the mortgage and home improvement lending of banks with or without agreements; Agreements in the 1980s and 1990s; National Home Mortgage Disclosure Act analysis; Mortgage lending analysis, excluding independent mortgage banks and small banks.

ABSTRACT: This study models the relationship between adolescents' perceived safety of places where they engage in their daily activities, socioeconomic characteristics, and the actual crime rates of corresponding activity places. The Teen Activity and Transportation Enterprise (TATE) project was an exploratory research and outreach project carried out at Feinstein High School in Providence, Rhode Island. Students developed activity lists that revealed how they spent their time outside of school and home, and used activity mapping techniques to differentiate urban areas perceived to be safe and unsafe. A mixed regression model was developed to measure perceived safety as the dependent variable. The independent variables included place-based characteristics such as crime rates, distance of an activity from home, time of day the activity took place, and gender. The researchers found that all factors except race and income were significantly related to perceived safety. Independent of time of day, females felt significantly less safe. Frequency of visits, duration, and distance from home were positively correlated with safer locations. Travel by car was associated with unsafe locations. Students were aware of and affected by the level of crime in public spaces in their communities. This sensitivity and awareness should lead researchers and planners to include teenagers' views when planning and designing public places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: This research explores whether homeownership leads to increased individual social capital among low- to moderate-income families. Social capital refers to social resources a person can access through contacts with others in his or her social networks. We theorize that homeownership can motivate interactions with others in one's neighborhood and therefore build social capital. Using a sample of low- and moderate-income homeowners and a matched sample of renters, we collect data on overall social resources and neighborhood-specific social resources. We find that homeowners have more total social capital resources and more neighborhood social capital resources than renters. Neighborhood group involvement has an indirect effect on social capital, but explains only a small amount of the influence of homeownership. These findings hold when controlling for household-level and neighborhood-level sociodemographic variables, as well as when using statistical models that account for endogeneity. Based on this evidence, we conclude that homeownership gives people access to social capital via increased social ties to others. We discuss the implications of this finding for housing policy and suggest new directions for research on social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public housing, usually located in predominantly poor, minority neighborhoods, has long been associated with concentrated poverty and spatially constraining opportunities for upward mobility. The federal government created HOPE VI in 1992 to transform the physical and social shape of public housing, demolishing existing projects and replacing them with mixed-income developments. To accomplish this public-housing residents are relocated with housing voucher subsidies to the private market and only a small portion will be able to return to the new mixed income developments. To what extent do these voucher subsidies simply reinforce a stratified housing market by limiting the types of neighborhoods available to former public-housing residents? Using spatial analytic techniques, this study examines the spatial patterns and neighborhood conditions of voucher housing and how these patterns link to public-housing relocatees’ destinations. Findings indicate that voucher housing tends to be clustered in poor African-American neighborhoods where the majority of relocated public-housing residents settle. Thus, there appear to be spatial constraints on relocatees’ residential options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite years of spatial mismatch hypothesis research, the poor's access to jobs is not well understood. This article provides a detailed analysis of the distributional imbalance between the residential locations of poor and nonpoor families and jobs over the 1990s in U.S. metropolitan areas. Descriptive and multivariate evidence are presented addressing whether job access for the poor has improved over the 1990s. If so, what factors drove the improvement, and do they help explain the disparity in job access between the poor and nonpoor? Using data from the U.S. Census, the Economic Census and the Zip Code Business Pattern files, the analysis reveals how the change in metropolitan factors over the 1990s explains the gap in job access between the poor and nonpoor. Specifically, the factors which increase parity or exacerbate it are identified. Results indicate that job access for the poor has improved significantly, particularly for black poor over the decade. A decomposition of job isolation indicates that change in dynamic metropolitan-wide factors such as job sprawl and the variation of housing affordability overall impedes movement toward parity in access to jobs between the poor and nonpoor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing policy shapes where low-income families live and whether they can access neighborhoods that promote children’s well-being. Since 2018, California’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program has incentivized the development of family affordable housing in higher-resource areas. We examine how the location of proposed and funded LIHTC developments changed in response to these incentives. We find that the probability that large family projects—those eligible for incentives—were proposed in higher-resource areas increased from 0.19 to 0.29, comparing 2014-2017 and 2018–2021. The probability that funded large family projects were located in higher-resource areas doubled, from 0.15 to 0.30. The probability of location in higher-resource areas declined for developments ineligible for incentives. Interviews with affordable housing developers illuminate the role of mission and resources in shaping their responses to program incentives. We conclude with a broader discussion of the LIHTC program as a tool for reducing neighborhood inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Major federal grant programs in areas such as transportation, neighborhood development, and education increasingly rely on competition to award funds. Yet the capacity to develop a competitive application for funds can vary widely, with some places lacking civic resources that contribute to successful grant applications. Moreover, not all civic actors and priorities have similar levels of involvement in grant seeking; in particular, low-income communities may be left out of the process. Our research examines how two forms of capacity-civic and equity advocacy-affect the distribution of federal transportation grants between and within metropolitan regions. We use multiple methods of analysis, including comparative case studies of transportation projects in Miami and Orlando, as well as a cross-sectional quantitative analysis of competitive transportation grants. First, we assess how civic capacity affects whether a region secured federal transportation funding and find that civic capacity is positively associated with receiving competitive transportation grants in both the case studies and quantitative analysis. Second, we examine whether equity advocacy capacity within a region is associated with grant project benefits for low-income communities. Based on the case studies, we find that equity advocacy capacity may be a key condition in order for grants to benefit low-income communities, and our exploratory quantitative analysis further supports for this finding. Overall our findings substantiate concerns that competition for federal awards could exacerbate disparities between and within regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, residents and community organizations in the ethnically diverse neighborhood of Albany Park, on Chicago’s northwest side, have been resisting gentrification, emerging as one of the city’s most active neighborhoods in anti-displacement organizing and policy setting. We seek to understand how a multiplicity of actors, human and non-human, have coalesced to achieve a modicum of success in stalling, subverting, and overcoming gentrification and its attendant displacement of low-income residents. We draw on the work of urban assemblage theorists to build a temporal and spatial analysis, showing the complex assemblage of resistance actors, their experiences, and their narratives over a 20-year time span. Despite the fear of many scholars and residents, Albany Park shows that once started, gentrification is not inevitable. We introduce the concept of “inplacement” to show resistance to displacement is possible through the work of civil society organizations and other neighborhood actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inner-ring suburbs have experienced disinvestment, White flight and concentrated poverty alongside increasingly racialized, anti-immigrant policing. Yet scholarship has tended to overlook these neighborhoods as sites of violent policing or models of community safety. In a 4-year collaborative community-based crime reduction project, this case study investigates how uneven development policies and underdevelopment in a low-income Latinx inner-ring suburb gave rise to and supported racialized policing and safety concerns. We also assess the possibilities of addressing community safety by investing in community building and revitalization. The research shows how the legacy of neighborhood disinvestment and deprivation contributed to a lack of quality affordable housing, public spaces, healthcare, employment, and other conditions that support residents' well-being—and thereby challenged public safety. Activities focused on community building and revitalization offered a positive and impactful alternative to community policing. While activities that invested in community policing demonstrated few successes, efforts focused on strengthening community knowledge, connecting residents to resources, engaging residents in community placemaking, and investing in youth had far better and potentially long-lasting results. The study suggests avenues to improve neighborhood safety in immigrant, Latinx, and declining suburbs without new investments in policing that too often puts residents at risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous neighborhood effect studies have reported on the negative consequences of living in disadvantaged neighborhoods for various employment outcomes, such as the duration of welfare dependence and level of income. One hypothesis for explaining this relationship is the social isolation hypothesis, which assumes that low-income residents in disadvantaged neighborhoods are worse off than their counterparts in mixed neighborhoods because they rely on other disadvantaged neighbors to find work. These ideas are addressed by comparing survey data on social resources in the social networks of residents in a low-income neighborhood and a socioeconomically mixed neighborhood in the Dutch city of The Hague. Findings show that living in a low-income neighborhood influences labor market participation indirectly by limiting residents' access to job information. However, differences in access to job information cannot be explained by the high degree of neighborhood orientation in the social networks of residents in the low-income neighborhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to study the neighborhood social cohesion of the inhabitants of the Metropolitan Area of Santiago, Chile (MAS), considering its recent urban transformations driven by neoliberal urban policies. Using multilevel logistic regressions based on a survey of 401 inhabitants, we identify a symbolic cohesion among residents with higher incomes, which combines a high sense of belonging with low neighborhood sociability, and a relational cohesion among the vulnerable population, based on a stronger neighborhood sociability and a low sense of belonging. These results show an influence of the geographical divide between high and low income inhabitants, accentuated by the socio-spatial segregation of the metropolis in the past decades, in addition to identifying a certain relationship between neighborhood cohesion and two of its major neoliberal trends of urban growth: the densification of its center and the development of peripheral social housing. We argue that a deeper understanding of the distinction between relational and symbolic forms of neighborhood social cohesion is relevant because, as well as allowing us to analyze the MAS case by addressing its current complexity, it provides an opportunity to discuss the way in which the concept is defined and conceived in recent literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing policy in the United States has long been characterized by unequal investment in homeownership and low-income rental assistance, with implications for racial (and ethnic) inequality in access to stable housing. In this study, I examine socioeconomic status and neighborhood characteristics of non-Hispanic White and non-Hispanic Black adults with children receiving HUD rental assistance using a nationally representative linked survey-administrative dataset. Results show that Black and White adults who receive rental assistance tend to have similar (low) incomes, yet Black adults experience significantly higher levels of neighborhood disadvantage than White adults. Furthermore, living in poverty is a substantially stronger predictor of receiving HUD rental assistance for White than Black adults. The results support the notion that rental assistance programs are a last resort for White households, many of whom may benefit from historical federal government support for homeownership. Rental assistance serves as an important safety net for Black families but fails to provide significant improvement in the neighborhood environment. The results contribute to a comprehensive understanding of racial inequality in the impacts of U.S. rental housing policy and the historical legacy of racial exclusion in U.S. homeownership programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parking citations are among the most common minor offenses, which can result in millions of dollars in revenue each year for cities. However, it is an open question whether the spatial distribution of parking citations is equitable in terms of neighborhoods’ racial/ethnic composition and economic standing. To the extent that parking citations are issued in nonwhite or low-income neighborhoods, this would represent a form of urban inequality. Thus, for the present study, we assess this understudied proposition by collecting data on neighborhoods in San Francisco, California, and estimating a series of negative binomial regression models. Although we find that measures of nonwhite ethnicities are non-significant in relation to all types of parking citations, we do find evidence that low-income neighborhoods have significantly higher rates of both street cleaning and metered parking citations, in comparison to high-income neighborhoods. We also determine that the effect of neighborhood income is moderated by the concentration of certain ethnicities. The implications of these findings for urban sociology and public policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Opportunity Zone (OZ) program—created in 2017—is the newest federal economic development tool to assist low-income neighborhoods. While the program aims to bring investment to disinvested neighborhoods, the broad eligibility criteria enable OZs to be designated in relatively high-value, high-opportunity areas, ultimately sparking gentrification rather than job creation for low-income residents. This major equity concern with OZs centers on the question of how local policymakers targeted their OZs. In this paper, we develop an index of development potential that accounts for hyper-localized real estate trends and spatial context to gauge the future ability of areas to attract private investment and assess the need for place-based development incentives. We apply this index to assess Chicago’s OZ selection process and find that despite Chicago’s efforts to strategically align OZs to areas of high need, it ultimately designated some OZs in areas that have among the highest development potential in the city and do not require a subsidy to receive future private market investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of social capital has been embedded ubiquitously into the strategies and goals of community-based development programs for families living in low-income neighborhoods; yet, scholars continue to debate social capital's empirical support. The present study defines a specific type of social capital—informal neighborhood bonding social capital—and tests its relationship with homeownership while controlling for effects of neighborhood context. Findings reveal informal neighborhood bonding social capital is associated with homeownership above and beyond the effects of neighborhood context. Findings are discussed in relation to future research and the implications for community-based practitioners working with families in low-income neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed Newtown Pike Extension in Lexington, Kentucky, has the potential to cause significant displacement of low-income residents. Following Executive Order 12898, federal agencies have been required to consider environmental justice impacts of their policies and activities. Highway planners in Lexington have crafted a mitigation strategy that includes a community land trust, which is intended to provide permanent protection for the low-income community to be affected by the highway extension. Although the community land trust may be an attractive option for maintaining housing affordability and community cohesion, the idea must overcome some significant hurdles if it is going to be useful as an environmental impact mitigation tool. One problem is selling the idea of communal land ownership to African American and low-income households. Part of the challenge is to design a method for sharing capital gains that gives an adequate return to home buyers while maintaining affordability. Another difficulty concerns renters who are eligible for only limited relocation subsidies that in many cases will not be enough to cover the cost of new rental housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]