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- Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences
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- National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities
National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities
Show moreAs an urban-redevelopment strategy, the goals of mixed-income development are often talked about in terms of building “community”—the shaping of environments, opportunities, and social arrangements that promote healthy neighborhood life, particularly for the low-income people who live there. This article explores the strategies engaged, expectations for, and early responses to efforts to build “community” in three mixed-income developments being built on the footprint of former public housing developments in Chicago. In doing so, it investigates the expectations among residents and stakeholders, distills and explores three major strategic orientations being engaged by developers and their partners, and examines how these strategies in particular—and the building of community more generally—is playing out across sites, including the dynamics and conditioning factors that promote or inhibit participation, engagement, interaction, and the shaping of social cohesion and social control
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Show moreThis article examines the theory and evidence behind the increased policy and scholarly interest in the role that schools might play in promoting neighborhood revitalization, focuses on the extent to which schools might be a key component in the growing efforts across the country to address urban poverty by creating and sustaining mixed-income neighborhoods, identifies five channels through which investment in high-quality public schools might help facilitate the types of neighborhood- and individual-level outcomes sought through mixed-income development, explores the theoretical arguments behind these pathways, and draws on research to assess the potential value of each. The article concludes that schools can play unique roles as amenities, local resources, and forums for interaction and collective action, but leveraging that potential value for the benefit of everyone, including those in poverty, will require impeding real estate market forces and surmounting differences in parental school expectations and engagement associated with socioeconomic status.
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Show moreMixed-income development has been embraced by policymakers across the country as a promising means of deconcentrating poverty and revitalizing inner city neighborhoods. The unprecedented scale of Chicago’s effort at mixed-income development provides an important opportunity to learn about the possibilities and challenges of this approach. Most of the new developments have completed at least one pre-occupancy phase of construction, marketing, and resident outreach. This paper explores the perspectives of two key actors in the mixed income development process: private developers and social service providers. In Depth interviews were conducted with 26 individuals working on nine of Chicago’s major new mixed-income developments. This qualitative analysis uses the perspectives of these key actors to identify some of the major early challenges of the mixed-income development process in Chicago. Implications for the future of mixed-income development and public housing transformation in Chicago and across the country are considered.
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Show moreI critically assess the potential for mixed-income development as a means of helping lift families in U.S. inner cities out of poverty. I identify four main propositions for the promise of mixed-income development, provide a conceptual framework that delineates the pathways through which mixed-income development can be hypothesized to improve the quality of life for the urban poor, and review the evidence from existing research on the relevance of these propositions. Because of the scale and possible elimination of the HOPE VI (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) program, I pay particular attention to what we have learned from it. The most compelling propositions are those that do not rely on social interaction to promote a higher quality of life for low-income residents and instead predict benefits through greater informal social control and higher-quality goods and services. I consider the limitations of this strategy and policy implications for future mixed-income development.
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Show morePolicy-makers in several countries are turning to income- and tenure-mixing strategies in an attempt to reverse decades of social and economic isolation in impoverished urban areas. In the US city of Chicago, all high-rise public housing developments across the city are being demolished, public housing residents are being dispersed throughout the metropolitan area and 10 new mixed-income developments are being created on the footprint of former public housing complexes. Findings are presented from in-depth interviews with residents across income levels and tenures at two mixed income developments and the paper explores residents’ perceptions of the physical, psychological and social impacts of the mixed-income setting on their lives.
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Show moreIn the largest poverty deconcentration effort in any city in the US, all high-rise public housing family developments in Chicago have been demolished and are being replaced by mixed-income developments. Advocates for public housing residents have worked hard to negotiate a ‘‘right to return’’ to the new mixed income developments. Yet, as in other cities across the country, the rates of return to the new developments have been very low. Little is understood about residents’ perceptions of their options or the factors that drive their relocation decisions. This article examines relocation decisions using data from in-depth interviews with a panel of relocating residents and a sample of ‘‘returners’’ at three mixed income developments in Chicago. Our findings about relocation decisions include the relevance of attachment to people and place, challenges to the notion of resident ‘‘choice,’’ conceptions about the anticipated benefits of mixed-income communities that refute popular theories about the value of higher-income neighbors, and anticipated trade-offs and risks associated with a move to a mixed income development.
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Show morePublic housing residents have long experienced stigma as members of an urban “underclass.” One policy response is the creation of mixed-income developments; by deconcentrating poverty and integrating residents into communities in which their residences are indistinguishable from neighbors, such efforts might reduce stigma associated with residency in traditional public housing. Through in-depth interviews with 35 relocated public housing residents and 184 field observations at three mixed-income developments in Chicago, we find this is not the case. Stigma associated with living in public housing is ameliorated, yet residents report that their experience of stigma has intensified in other ways. The negative response of higher income residents, along with stringent screening and rule enforcement, amplifies the sense of difference many residents feel in these contexts. We demonstrate that this new form of stigma has generated a range of coping responses as relocated public housing residents seek to maintain eligibility while buttressing their social identity.
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