Public Housing Redevelopment, Neighborhood Change, and the Restructuring of Urban Inequality

2017/11/01 by Laura Tach, Allison Dwyer Emory · 72 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Demographic economics #Development economics #Economic growth #Economics #Gentrification #Geography #Housing Market and Economics #Inequality #Metropolitan area #Political science #Poverty #Public housing #Redevelopment #Restructuring #Spillover effect #Urban Planning and Governance #Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies

paper · doi:10.1086/695468

published in American Journal of Sociology 123(3), 686-739 (University of Chicago Press)

openalex publication_date 2017/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

Housing policy plays a central role in the reproduction of urban inequalities. This study asks whether one such policy—public housing redevelopment via the federal HOPE VI program—altered the trajectories of high-poverty, racially segregated neighborhoods and reduced urban neighborhood inequality. Using a novel spatially integrated data set that combines administrative data with census data for 168 U.S. cities, the authors find that public housing redevelopment had significant direct and indirect spillover effects on neighborhood racial and economic composition between 1990 and 2010. The change induced by public housing redevelopment was ecologically significant, altering durable racial and economic hierarchies among urban neighborhoods. Changes in poor, minority neighborhoods were driven largely by displacement, however, from a net reduction in the number of poor and nonwhite residents. The authors evaluate the significance of these results for theories of neighborhood effects, gentrification, and durable urban inequality and discuss implications for urban policy.

Citations

• The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects

Cited by

• Federal place-based policy and the geography of inequality in the United States, 1990–2019
• Organizations and the Governance of Urban Poverty
• Did HOPE VI Move Communities to Opportunity? How Public Housing Redevelopment Affected Neighborhood Poverty, Racial Composition, and Resources 1990–2016
• Does Large-Scale Neighborhood Reinvestment Work? Effects of Public–Private Real Estate Investment on Local Sales Prices, Rental Prices, and Crime Rates
• Where Did They Go After HOPE VI? A Longitudinal Study of Long-Term Neighborhood Attainment Outcomes in Chicago
• Short- and long-term effects of HOPE VI redevelopment on neighborhood housing conditions
• Public Housing Redevelopment in Melbourne: A Multidisciplinary Response
• Does Large-Scale Neighborhood Reinvestment Work? Effects of Public-Private Real Estate Investment on Local Sales Prices, Rental Prices, and Crime Rates. [europepmc]
• Clustering of Socioeconomic Data in Hong Kong for Planning Better Community Health Protection. [europepmc]
• Does Public Housing Increase the Risk of Child Health Problems? Evidence from Linked Survey-Administrative Data. [europepmc]
• Does poor health influence residential selection? Understanding mobility among low-income housing voucher recipients in the Moving to Opportunity Study. [europepmc]

Related

• Did HOPE VI Move Communities to Opportunity? How Public Housing Redevelopment Affected Neighborhood Poverty, Racial Composition, and Resources 1990–2016
• Short- and long-term effects of HOPE VI redevelopment on neighborhood housing conditions
• Gentrification in Black and White
• Where Did They Go After HOPE VI? A Longitudinal Study of Long-Term Neighborhood Attainment Outcomes in Chicago
• Assessing Economic Change in HOPE VI Neighborhoods