Mixed-income Neighborhoods Research Articles

Defensive Development Against Disinvestment: Early Black Gentrification in the History of Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Studies of early gentrification have largely focused on cases of White gentrifiers in predominately White and Latinx low-income neighborhoods, which has overlooked the role of the Black middle-class and the presence of Black gentrifiers in early gentrification. In this article, we document the role of the Black middle-class in early gentrification in 1970s Fort Greene, Brooklyn, demonstrating their role in a “defensive development” strategy to protect the neighborhood from state-led demolition-style urban renewal. The Fort Greene Landmarks Preservation Committee, a Black, middle-class led coalition of multi-racial, middle-class residents pursued historic designation to preserve the multi-racial and predominately Black, mixed-income neighborhood from further demolition from urban renewal and disinvestment from redlining. Our findings confirm that early Black gentrification, like tract contemporary Black gentrification can both provide temporary protections for the Black community and lead to further gentrification.

How Do Real Estate Actors Advertise in Mixed-Income Neighborhoods? The Importance of Home Security

Throughout its history, the real estate industry has emphasized privacy and exclusion in housing advertisements, helping entrench patterns of residential segregation in the process. Recently, however, some forms of neighborhood-level social diversity are becoming more common, as indicated by the growing number of neighborhoods that are mixed-income. Does the proliferation of income-diverse neighborhoods suggest that advertisers are curtailing their exclusionary rhetoric when marketing homes in mixed-income communities? To answer this question, this study analyzes over one million Craigslist rental listings posted in the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas in July and August of 2019. Findings show that real estate advertisers continue to rely on rhetorical strategies that likely reinforce, if not encourage, privacy and exclusion in mixed-income neighborhoods. Specifically, rental advertisements in mixed-income neighborhoods were disproportionately likely to mention that the advertised unit came with a home security device, a rhetorical tool likely aimed at calming homeseekers’ apprehension toward living in an income-diverse neighborhood. This finding suggests that scholars have underexamined the strategies that real estate actors use to persuade homeseekers to live in diverse neighborhoods. Furthermore, the security rhetoric prevalent in income-diverse neighborhoods may encourage homeseekers’ fears of mixed-income settings and impede cross-class social integration.

Rebuilding Public Housing in Regent Park: The Shifting Dynamics of Financialized Redevelopment Models

This article examines the redevelopment of Toronto’s Regent Park, a neighborhood formerly comprised exclusively of public housing. Since 2006, it has been undergoing a transformation into a mixed income neighborhood. Through interviews and document analysis, the paper traces the complex and changing development agreements as redevelopment progresses, highlighting the state’s entrepreneurial efforts and the dynamic nature of urban planning and policy. We find that practices of financializing public land are highly fluid, and that efforts to derive public value from public housing redevelopment are tied to shifting community expectations regarding the return of benefits to residents.

“I Hate That Food Lion”: Grocery Shopping, Racial Capitalism, and Everyday Disinvestment

Using interview data from three mixed-income neighborhoods—one predominantly white and two multiracial neighborhoods—we find that an overwhelming majority of white, middle-class respondents did not shop in their local grocery store ( n = 68). To explain this phenomenon, we propose a concept of everyday disinvestment to capture the interplay between individual-level decision-making and structural-level disinvestment under racial capitalism. We identify three practices of everyday disinvestment—avoidance, distancing, and selective engagement—as well as the rationalizations residents present for their behaviors. We argue racial capitalist ideologies of antiblackness and consumption as freedom are foundational to residents’ justifications of disinvestment from grocery stores in mixed-income communities. Everyday disinvestment not only expands our understanding of disinvestment as a mechanism of racial capitalism, but it deepens our understanding of food apartheid as a relational process.

Measuring the Differentiated Impact of New Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Projects on Households’ Movements by Income Level within Urban Areas

Social mixing is one of the key objectives of the housing policy in OECD countries. The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, the largest affordable housing construction program in the US since 1986, has recently set creating mixed-income communities as one of the standards. As a project-based program, LIHTC developments are likely to influence residential mobility; however, little is known about its empirical effects. This study investigated whether new LIHTC projects are effective at attracting heterogeneous income groups to LIHTC neighborhoods, thereby contributing to creating mixed-income communities. Using unique individual-level household movement data combined with origin–destination neighborhood characteristics, we developed zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) models to analyze the LIHTC’s impact on residential mobility patterns in Franklin County, Ohio, US, from 2011 to 2015. The results suggest that the LIHTC attracts low-income households while deterring higher-income families, and therefore the program is not proved to be effective at creating mixed-income neighborhoods.

Managing Difference: White Parenting Practices in Socioeconomically Diverse Neighborhoods

Drawing on 40 interviews with white parents in two mixed-income neighborhoods—one that is majority-white and the other that is multiracial—this article examines how residence in socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods conditions the parenting practices of middle-class whites, specifically concerning parents’ management of their children’s contact with the poor. The data reveal that white parents in both neighborhoods work to ensure symbolic and spatial distance between their children and their poor neighbors resulting in distinctive patterns of micro-segregation in each neighborhood. However, how parents engage in this work depends on the race of their neighbors and the block-level geography of their community. I find that parents deploy more contact-avoidant practices toward their poor white rather than their poor black neighbors. Among participants, poor whites conjure feelings of disgust and are actively avoided, whereas poor black residents provoke feelings of ambivalence, as contact with them is judged to be both valuable and threatening.

Exploring the Heterogeneous Effects of Ecological and Structural Factors on Intensifying Neighborhood Economic Polarization

ABSTRACT Scholars have recently reported the rise of neighborhoods at the extremes of the income distribution—both affluent and poor neighborhoods—and the loss of middle- or mixed-income neighborhoods. As the majority of studies on neighborhood change have focused on the cyclical process of neighborhood change, especially for poor or disadvantaged neighborhoods, this study contributes to the literature by exploring the mechanisms of affluent and poor neighborhoods’ persistence in their economic status over time. First, this research descriptively shows that affluent and poor neighborhoods within the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) as of 2010 were likely to retain their economic status during the 2000s, whereas other, relatively middle-income neighborhoods presented more diverse economic transitions. Second, by employing multilevel regression models, this research finds that several ecological and structural factors heterogeneously affect affluent and poor neighborhoods. The results suggest that affluent neighborhoods tend to respond more effectively to the decline process generated by ecological, economic, and structural forces than poor neighborhoods do. This study contributes to the urban neighborhood change scholarship by integrating different theoretical perspectives from the social science literature to understand how neighborhoods at the extremes of the income distribution are likely to persist in their economic status.

Neighborhood Income Inequality and Adolescent Relationship Aggression: Results of a Nationally Representative, Longitudinal Study.

Adolescent relationship aggression (ARA) is a prevalent public health issue with myriad adverse health outcomes. Experts suggest that a research focus on individual- and family-level risk factors for ARA has been too limited, proposing that research on the "outer layers" of the social-ecological model, including community-level risk factors, may hold promise for the development of interventions targeting ARA. This study assessed the longitudinal association between one community-level risk factor-income inequality-and ARA victimization and perpetration. The study also examined variations of this association by race/ethnicity, income, and/or sex. This study is based on 723 participants (351 male and 372 female participants) from the Survey on Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence (STRiV). We assessed data across two waves (2013 and 2016). Logistic regression models were used to assess the association between neighborhood income inequality and both ARA victimization and perpetration. We included interaction terms to assess whether these associations varied by race/ethnicity and/or income, and we stratified analyses by sex. We did not detect associations between income inequality and ARA victimization or perpetration in the overall sample. However, for female participants from families with more income, living in a neighborhood with more income inequality was associated with increased risk of ARA victimization (odds ratio [OR] = 1.163; p < .05). More affluent, compared with less affluent, adolescent girls in mixed-income neighborhoods may be at increased risk of ARA victimization.

Higher pricing of fresh produce is more likely in SNAP-Ed eligible neighborhoods when adjacent non-program eligible neighborhoods are mixed income.

This analysis describes the socioeconomic attributes of neighborhoods adjacent to low-income neighborhoods with ≥50% of households that are Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) eligible. It compares the pricing, availability, and quality of fresh produce between these neighborhoods in Los Angeles County. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health utilized 2013–2014 community-level data from the Communities of Excellence in Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity Prevention (CX3) Project to examine the geographic patterns of fresh produce purchases and accessibility in SNAP-Ed eligible census tracts. Community indicators collected by CX3 included information on pricing, availability, and quality of fruits and vegetables from grocery stores (n = 108) in these eligible neighborhoods (n = 21). Correlation statistics were generated to explore the effects of adjacent neighborhoods' socioeconomic status on fruit and vegetable pricing, availability, and quality in the selected neighborhoods (“CX3 neighborhoods”). Poverty data were obtained from the United States Census' American Community Survey. Residents of CX3 neighborhoods that were surrounded by mixed income neighborhoods paid 43% more for fresh produce than CX3 neighborhoods surrounded by other similarly low-income neighborhoods (median produce price, $1.50 versus $1.05). Study results suggest that while quality of produce remains an issue, it is the higher pricing of fresh produce in CX3 neighborhoods – i.e., in the presence of other surrounding mixed income neighborhoods (those with relatively higher income) – that appeared to potentiate food access barriers. Future SNAP-Ed efforts should take this pricing pattern under consideration when designing, planning, and/or implementing nutrition-related programs in these neighborhoods.

Using Housing Vouchers to Create Stable Mixed-Income Gentrifying Neighborhoods: A Case Study of Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati, OH

ABSTRACTThe Over-the-Rhine (OTR) neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio is a gentrifying inner-city community undergoing rapid revitalization. In a gentrifying neighborhood like OTR, the Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCVP) could help sustain a mix of incomes within an increasingly high-income community. This study uses geographic information system analysis to examine the role of HCVP in OTR from 1995 to 2012, that is, changes in voucher holder density, hotspots, and migration patterns. Discussions with key stakeholders provide additional insight on gentrification in OTR and the ways HCVP could be used to create a mixed-income neighborhood that would benefit lower-income households.

What is achieved and lost in living in a mixed-income neighborhood? Findings from South Korea

The concept of social mix is perceived as an attempt to minimize social exclusion by enhancing individual social capital. Related policies have been implemented in many countries to prevent isolation of certain groups and achieve social integration. However, few studies have examined their impacts on various income groups. This study uses data from the National Social Capital Survey in South Korea to empirically investigate the impact of the social mix policy on trust, networks, and norms, which are the three types of social capital that promote social integration. Multiple regression models present that the income mix is negatively associated with neighborly trust and networks, while being positively associated with norms. These models also suggest that mixing of income groups improves the norms of low-income groups but reduces the trust of high-income groups. Thus, this study argues for the need to establish specific goals and targets when promoting a social mix policy and understanding the side effects of introducing such a policy.

Is it all in the eye of the beholder? Benefits of living in mixed-income neighborhoods in New York and Los Angeles

ABSTRACTScholarly attention to mixed-income neighborhoods has come predominantly from studying the effects of federally funded housing policies, such as Empowerment Zone programs and the HOPE VI Urban Demonstration program, which was replaced by the Choice Neighborhoods program. These programs operate on the assumption that economic integration is beneficial to lower income residents. We believe that it is important to learn more about the already existing mixed-income neighborhoods, for which empirical evidence is lacking. We address 2 research questions: Do mixed-income neighborhoods create a beneficial context? Have mixed-income neighborhoods fared better during the mortgage foreclosure crisis? Applying 2 independent empirical criteria in identifying mixed-income neighborhoods, we find that these communities do create a more advantageous context compared to lower income communities and less advantageous context compared to higher income communities.

The Intertwined History of Class and Race Segregation in Los Angeles

Separation of classes was as much a part of early twentieth-century Los Angeles residential development as racial segregation. While one is certainly more pernicious than the other, the two often went hand in hand. Developers used similar tools to create these divided communities: restrictive covenants, reliance on the courts to uphold those covenants, and advertising. They purposefully planned residential space intended to keep different classes of people separate and ensure white communities. This history becomes especially significant in light of present-day discussions of urban inequity, gentrification, and mixed-income neighborhoods.

Achieving the Middle Ground in an Age of Concentrated Extremes: Mixed Middle-Income Neighborhoods and Emerging Adulthood.

This article focuses on stability and change in "mixed middle-income" neighborhoods. We first analyze variation across nearly two decades for all neighborhoods in the United States and in the Chicago area, particularly. We then analyze a new longitudinal study of almost 700 Chicago adolescents over an 18-year span, including the extent to which they are exposed to different neighborhood income dynamics during the transition to young adulthood. The concentration of income extremes is persistent among neighborhoods, generally, but mixed middle-income neighborhoods are more fluid. Persistence also dominates among individuals, though Latino-Americans are much more likely than African Americans or whites to be exposed to mixed middle-income neighborhoods in the first place and to transition into them over time, even when adjusting for immigrant status, education, income, and residential mobility. The results here enhance our knowledge of the dynamics of income inequality at the neighborhood level, and the endurance of concentrated extremes suggests that policies seeking to promote mixed-income neighborhoods face greater odds than commonly thought.

The New Orleans Lakefront

Situated on a crescent-shaped swath of largely swampy land between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, the city of New Orleans has limited ability to expand its geographical boundaries. New Orleanians’ efforts to expand and develop the Milneberg area of its northern edge began at the end of the eighteenth century but did not reach full realization until the middle of the twentieth century. Though established as a destination for the traveling elite, the area quickly transitioned into a wide-open community with recreational opportunities for all strata of New Orleans society. By the middle of the twentieth century, governmental and private developers worked together to create an amusement park, four mixed-income neighborhoods, numerous institutional properties, and public parks on the new lakefront. The history of this development traces the interplay of public and private forces on decisions of land use and urban planning.

Mixed-Income Housing and Neighborhood Integration: Evidence from Inclusionary Zoning Programs

ABSTRACT:Using propensity score matching and regression techniques, together with an original database of approximately 12,000 inclusionary zoning (IZ) units built in Montgomery County, Maryland and Suffolk County, New York, this article comparatively analyzes the effect of IZ programs on racial and income integration and neighborhood change at the census tract level between 1980 and 2000. In particular, the article explores the question of whether IZ programs encourage stable neighborhood integration over time. This analysis fills a gap in the current empirical literature on the effect of IZ programs on neighborhood change and integration, an original policy goal that has not been evaluated previously due to data limitations. The findings indicate that the effect of IZ units on neighborhood racial and income transition is dependent on the siting of IZ units, the initial characteristics of the neighborhoods in which they are built, and the institutional framework of the IZ program. In the aggregate, IZ units positively affect the level of both racial and income integration in neighborhoods where units are built, although stark differences emerge between the two study areas. The findings do reveal the potential for IZ programs to exacerbate existing concentrations of poverty and patterns of residential racial segregation.

Telling the Story of Urbanization

Telling the Story of Urbanization Elizabeth Byrd Wood (bio) It's probably a safe bet that city living today, if you take away Starbucks and Subway, is not too different from city living a century ago. People crowding the sidewalk on their way to work, shopping, or school; a mélange of grime, odors, and noise, crime (both big-time and merely annoying); and an ever-changing grab bag of people representing different cultures, races, ages, religions, languages, and income levels. What is the best way to tell the story of cities and the people who lived there? A story that is both uplifting and shameful, a story of optimism and defeat, a story of grand visions and failed experiments. A story that continues to evolve today as cities absorb newcomers from all corners of the world. Across the country, a handful of museums are using the power of place to tell the stories of urbanization. More than just cultural centers, these museums link the history of urban dwellers with the city where they settled. At the same time, these museums are creatively involving residents in telling their stories. These museums— housed in former tenements, hotels, and apartments—are bringing life to urban centers, reflecting the generational stories of residents, and giving them a sense of pride in their history and their city. This article looks at three museums in three different cities— the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City, and the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago—to explore their role in telling the complex stories of our nation's big cities. History from the Heart Most historic house museums have expanded their interpretation programs to tell a multi-layered version of the events that took place there. They have learned that today's visitors are equally interested—and maybe more so—in life below the stairs, or in the alley, or in the factory, as they are in life in the plantation house, [End Page 37] or the industrialist's mansion. Particularly in the case of these three urban museums, they are helping visitors understand the experiences of the working poor and immigrant families—their fears, their dreams, and their successes—the quintessential American story. Often museums are turning to the source and collecting the oral histories of the people who once lived there, and in some cases, who still live there. The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle's Chinatown-International District uses personal recollections to tell the stories of hardship and struggles with identity and acceptance. The museum is located in a former hotel where countless immigrants from Asia found a place of refuge. Interviews with former residents have revealed stories both poignant and at the same time uplifting. Debbie Louie relates the story of growing up in an apartment along the small alley that ran between the hotel and the neighboring building. As a girl she was invited to a sleepover, and the next day, when the mother offered to drive her home, Debbie says that she was too embarrassed to admit that she lived in an apartment in an alley and asked to be let off at the end of the street. Today, however, she can now say proudly that her home is a museum, and that her story is worth telling. The term "public housing" means many things to many people. Former residents of these housing projects have rich stories to tell about growing up and living in these urban apartments. In Chicago, The National Public Housing Museum, which tells the story of subsidized housing, hasn't had its official opening yet, but its founders and the museum president are moving ahead full steam. Keith Magee, president and chief executive officer of the museum, explains that the idea for a museum jelled about 16 years ago, when the City of Chicago proposed demolishing a number of the city's public housing projects and replacing them with mixed-income neighborhoods. In the eyes of the city leaders, large public housing projects were part of the city's history they would just as soon forget...

The grassroots and New Urbanism: a case from a Southern California Latino community

Participation is important to the design of New Urbanist plans. We examine the benefits and challenges of community organizing and action research for the types of needs in lower-income Latino urban areas undergoing New Urbanism. We use the case of Santa Ana, which recently released a plan for the Station District project to revitalize a transit-oriented area supported by a Mexican and working-class urban neighborhood. The Station District is an example of New Urbanism, which promotes transit service and mixed income neighborhoods. We examine how a coalition planned within and outside the public policy process in pursuit of a community benefits agreement (CBA). One noteworthy finding is that organizing and action research allow a deep picture of urban development issues and this is important to respond to local context. There are challenges in obtaining a CBA and sustaining a coalition. We conclude by suggesting research on governance and claims to place.

Prospects for walkable, mixed-income neighborhoods: insights from U.S. developers

In the U.S. today, there is a significant danger that walkable communities are becoming unaffordable to low and even moderate-income residents. This paper reports on the results of a survey of affordable housing developers that was conducted to provide a better understanding of what kinds of strategies could be used to substantially increase the prevalence of walkable, mixed-income neighborhoods from the point of view of developers. Thirty-four developers from around the U.S. were interviewed by telephone in November and December, 2010. Five themes emerged from the survey: the need for financing and access to capital and subsidy; the need for reform of financial regulation; the need for reform of land use regulation; the need for incentives; and the need for better communication and networking. Responses to the survey underscored the frustrations affordable housing developers are having with development more generally, and how those frustrations are amplified when trying to locate affordable housing in walkable, mixed-income neighborhoods. The paper concludes by suggesting strategies that could be employed to help promote walkable, mixed-income neighborhoods, beyond the obvious need for better access to capital: support for research that focuses on the benefits of mixed-income neighborhoods; documentation and illumination of best practices; and the fostering of communication and partnerships among a diverse set of advocates.

Creating Mixed-Income Neighborhoods Unintentionally: Public Housing Residualization and Socioeconomic Segregation in Hong Kong

Public housing affects the segregation of ethnic and socioeconomic groups in different ways in different cities, depending on the residents and its location. This paper analyzes how Hong Kong’s public housing system affects segregation by income using a combination of methods, including indexes that explicitly account for space and the ordinal nature of income data. Findings document show that public housing unintentionally reduces the city’s spatial segregation, though the effect varies across space and income groups. The spatial distance between low-income and middle-income households is reduced, creating mixed-income neighborhoods but also increasing the segregation of high-income households.