Housing Policy

Is it an overstatement to characterize the housing reforms of the last 40 years as revolutionary? No! The transition away from the infamous projects was, first of all, very rapid: Relative to the usual slow-as-syrup reform, the United States rather abruptly rejected traditional public housing for families, with President Nixon halting funding in 1973 and President Ford then expanding the voucher system in 1974. The postwar urban renewal projects, ushered in with great fanfare as part of President Truman’s Fair Deal, were quickly left with few defenders.

The tide turned quickly because, as with most revolutions, we were quite convinced that we knew what had gone wrong and why. The main concern among social scientists was that traditional public housing served to concentrate the poor and to isolate them from others. 

A SPECIAL ISSUE PARTIALLY FUNDED BY THE JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION

Table of Contents (Spring 2013)

EDITOR'S NOTE

Editor's Note

Intervention

The Case for Taxing Away Illicit Inequality
Can we eliminate inequality arising from corruption, sweetheart deals, and information asymmetry? The case for making tax policy our anti-inequality weapon.

Research in Brief

A Report on New Poverty and Inequality
The effects of the Great Recession on local moves; the sources of the decline in residential segregation; and the abrupt falloff in wealth among recent generations.

THE QUIET REVOLUTION IN HOUSING POLICY

Why Concentrated Poverty Matters
The best and latest assessment of the Moving to Opportunity experiment. Do the results require a major rethinking of why concentrated poverty matters?
Do Housing Vouchers Work?
A full evaluation of a Section 8 housing voucher program in Wisconsin. The effects on mobility, poverty, and neighborhood quality are as expected, but not so for individual earnings. Why did earnings decrease among voucher recipients?
Solving Urban Poverty: Lessons from Suburbia
What happens when affordable housing is placed in an affluent neighborhood? The big storm of protest...ends with a whimper and good outcomes all around.
Can Housing Policy be Good Education Policy?
Disappointed with education policy? Housing policy may be the answer.

Trends

Community Well-Being and the Great Recession
Has our "radical" housing policy of the past 40 years, a policy that puts issues of desegregation front and center, delivered on its objectives?