Residential Mobility Programs Research Articles

A reprodução das desigualdades socioeconômicas na vizinhança: examinando a dimensão espacial da pobreza

The article carries out an initial reflection on the approaches to urban poverty and its repercussions on socio-spatial organization in America, European, and Latin American sociology. Numerous parallel proposals stemming from this hypothesis contribute to the construction of the three theoretical narratives, which agree on the following points: the growing socio-spatial polarization linked to the increase of socioeconomic inequalities; the restructuring of the productive system; the retraction or reconfiguration of the social welfare state, accompanied by harsher eligibility criteria that condition access to income transfer programs; and the stigmatization of certain minority or ethnic-racial groups in the job and housing markets. Secondly, the discussion focuses on the question of how the residential segregation process becomes a mechanism that reinforces poverty due to its impact on individuals’ wellbeing and socioeconomic performance, on the basis of the territory-effect hypothesis. The juxtaposition of disadvantages in the territory, understood as an intermediate dimension between agency and structure, should take into account the spatial stratification of socioeconomic inequalities for the design of urban policies, among which three orientations stand out. People-based policies provide temporary assistance to certain marginal groups living in poor neighborhoods, through desegregation and residential mobility programs, strict monitoring of antidiscrimination laws in the real estate market, and housing loans that benefit low-income persons. Place-based policies define the neighborhood as intervention unit by investing in infrastructure and street furniture and in the creation of jobs in response to the local population’s demands, in order to broaden opportunity structures and further attract middle class groups. Additionally, by requiring the construction of housing that is accessible to the low-income population in suburban areas, they promote social and ethnic-racial heterogeneity in the neighborhood’s population composition. The indirect approach calls for stronger regulatory State intervention in the job and housing markets, adapted to the transformations of the socio-productive regime of Post-Fordism.

VEHICLE ACCESS AND EXPOSURE TO NEIGHBORHOOD POVERTY: EVIDENCE FROM THE MOVING TO OPPORTUNITY PROGRAM

ABSTRACTThe geographic determinants of social and economic opportunity have received much scholarly attention. A missing link in this body of research is an emphasis on the range of factors influencing low‐income households’ exposure to neighborhood poverty over time. This paper examines the dynamics of exposure to neighborhood poverty for Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program participants. Our paper is unique in its emphasis on the role of vehicle access as it shapes exposure to neighborhood poverty. We find that vehicle access is an important factor shaping residential spells and transitions to low‐poverty neighborhoods over time. We also find that the combined influence of a geographically‐targeted residential mobility requirement and vehicle access substantially elevates a household's likelihood of accessing and staying in a low‐poverty neighborhood. These findings suggest that residential mobility programs and similar efforts to spatially deconcentrate poverty should pay particular attention to the transportation needs of low‐income households.

A holistic intervention program for children from low socioeconomic status families.

A holistic intervention program for children from low socioeconomic status families.

The Importance of Scaffolding the Transition

I examine several potential explanations for recent evidence showing a lack of improvement in the academic achievement of children participating in several poverty reduction residential mobility programs. Detailed interviews and field notes about the relocation and school experiences of 80 children in the Gautreaux II residential mobility program are used. I find that for low-income children living in large central cities, residence in low-poverty neighborhoods has little effect on the opportunity to attend high-achieving schools. For those who relocated to suburban cities, neighborhood and school transition and adjustment difficulties create barriers that must be overcome for children to reap the educational benefits of attending high-achieving, highly resourced schools.

Your Life Chances Affect Where You Live: A Critique of the ‘Cottage Industry’ of Neighbourhood Effects Research

AbstractThis article advances a critique of the ‘neighbourhood effects’ genre in urban studies, by arguing that an acceptance of the ‘where you live affects your life chances’ thesis, however well‐intentioned, misses the key structural question of why people live where they do in cities. By examining the structural factors that give rise to differential life chances and the inequalities they produce, and by inverting the neighbourhood effects thesis to: your life chances affect where you live, the problem becomes one of understanding life chances via a theory of capital accumulation and class struggle in cities. Such a theory provides an understanding of the injustices inherent in letting the market (buttressed by the state) be the force that determines the cost of housing and therefore being the major determinant of where people live. The article draws on Marxist urban theory to contend that the residential mobility programs advocated by neighbourhood effects proponents stand on shaky ground, for if it is true that ‘neighbourhood effects’ exceed what would be predicted by poverty alone, moving the poor to a richer place would only eliminate that incremental difference, without addressing the capitalist institutional arrangements that create poverty.

The durability of gains from the Gautreaux Two residential mobility program: a qualitative analysis of who stays and who moves from low-poverty neighborhoods*

This paper examines mobility in the Gautreaux Two Housing Mobility Program, which attempted to alleviate poverty concentration by offering vouchers to residents of highly distressed Chicago public housing developments. In contrast to the original Gautreaux program, placement moves in Gautreaux Two have proven far less durable – most families quickly moved on from their placement neighborhoods to neighborhoods that were quite poor and very racially segregated. Based on in-depth interviews with 58 Gautreaux Two participants and their children, we find that the primary factors motivating secondary moves included substandard unit quality and hassles with landlords. Other factors included feelings of social isolation due to poor integration into the new neighborhood, distance from kin, transportation difficulties, children's negative reaction to the new neighborhood, and financial difficulties. Policy implications include the need for further pre- and post-move housing counseling for families in mobility programs.

Comparing residential mobility programs: design elements, neighborhood placements, and outcomes in MTO and Gautreaux

Reviewing prior studies of two residential mobility programs, the Gautreaux and Moving to Opportunity (MTO) programs, this paper examines whether program design elements may explain differences in neighborhood placements, which in turn may explain the programs' different individual outcomes. While MTO has a stronger research design than Gautreaux, it creates more modest changes in environment. Specifically, we find that the two programs create very different kinds of neighborhood placements. Compared with Gautreaux, MTO moves were shorter distances and to census tracts with higher poverty rates, larger minority populations, worse schools, and lower employment rates. These differences in neighborhood placements may explain why Gautreaux found larger impact than MTO in education and employment outcomes and in duration of moves. Although often ignored, design elements may be crucial to the success of programs, and several design elements may explain these different placements.

Gautreaux mothers and their children: an update

The Gautreaux program was one of the first major residential mobility programs in the United States, providing low-income black families from public housing with opportunities to relocate to more affluent white neighborhoods in the Chicago suburbs and in other city neighborhoods. This paper reviews the most recent research on the Gautreaux families, which uses long-term administrative data to examine the effects of placement neighborhoods on the economic and social outcomes of mothers and children. We find that both Gautreaux mothers and their now-grown children were remarkably successful at maintaining the affluence and safety of their placement neighborhoods. As to the long-run economic independence of the mothers themselves, however, the new research fails to confirm the suburban advantages found in past Gautreaux research, although it does show that these outcomes were worst in the most racially segregated placement neighborhoods. With regard to the criminal records of Gautreaux children, it is found that suburban placement helped boys but not girls. Based on these results, we review possible new directions for successful mobility programs.

Effects of neighborhood characteristics on the mortality of black male youth: Evidence from Gautreaux, Chicago

We estimate the effect of neighborhood characteristics on the mortality of poor black male youth in families relocated through the Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program, a residential mobility program implemented in Chicago, USA in 1976. Within our sample ( N = 2850), 52 post-placement deaths were observed, the majority of which (30) were homicides. All-cause and homicide mortality rates were substantially lower among those relocating to Census tracts with higher fractions of residents with college degrees, which suggests that relocating to more-advantaged neighborhoods can ameliorate the mortality risks faced by this population. The estimated effect declines over the post-placement period, a result consistent with evidence that Gautreaux families routinely relocated following their initial placement. A causal interpretation of these findings is undermined somewhat by evidence of neighborhood selection, though the mortality effect estimate is very robust to inclusion of covariates predictive of placement tract characteristics. Mortality effect estimates relating to Census tract measures of socioeconomic deprivation other than education were weaker in magnitude and generally insignificant, suggesting that neighborhood levels of human capital more strongly affect the mortality risks faced by this population than racial composition or neighborhood poverty.

Neighborhood Effects Examined Through the Lens of Residential Mobility Programs

Although researchers have consistently found that neighborhoods matter, relatively little is known about the processes through which neighborhood-level characteristics influence individual outcomes, and whether interventions targeting improving neighborhood characteristics will be beneficial for children. I examine whether relocating from high- to low-poverty neighborhoods affected low-income Black children's exposure to promotive developmental experiences. Participating families voluntarily relocated from high-poverty, minority segregated, inner-city Chicago neighborhoods to mostly White, low-poverty, suburban and Chicago neighborhoods. Data come from retrospective qualitative interviews with 22 Gautreaux One families an average of 15 years after initial relocation, and from interviews with 43 Gautreaux Two families as they relocated into their new communities. I find that children primarily benefited from the institutional versus the social interaction resources in their new neighborhoods. Furthermore, suburban placement was key in facilitating children's access to higher quality resources.

Residential Attainment of Now-Adult Gautreaux Children: Do they Gain, Hold or Lose Ground in Neighborhood Ethnic and Economic Segregation?

This paper examines the extent to which Chicago's Gautreaux residential mobility program affected children's residential attainment. Low-income black families voluntarily relocated into mostly white or mostly black city and suburban neighborhoods. The paper integrates quantitative and qualitative data collected eight to 22 years after participants' initial move into their placement neighborhoods. The primary programmatic goal of desegregation was accomplished; now-adult children's origin, placement and current neighborhoods average 85.6, 29.9 and 44.5 per cent black residents respectively. Now-adult children's residential mobility decisions have located them, on average, in ethnically integrated, low-poverty neighborhoods; children placed in mostly black, high-poverty neighborhoods and those placed in mostly white, low-poverty neighborhoods have relocated to ethnically balanced low- to moderate-poverty neighborhoods. Suburban placement was key in determining the level of children's initial relocation and current neighborhood quality. Now-adult children currently residing in suburban cities live in higher quality neighborhoods compared to those currently residing in Chicago.

Second‐Generation Effects of Chicago's Gautreaux Residential Mobility Program on Children's Participation in Crime

Data from the Gautreaux residential mobility program, which relocated low‐income African American families from high poverty, segregated inner‐city, Chicago neighborhoods into mostly European American, suburban neighborhoods, and mostly European American or mostly African American neighborhoods within Chicago, are used to assess whether children's later involvement with the Illinois criminal justice system is associated with the characteristics of their placement neighborhoods. I find that suburban placement provides a strong protective benefit for boys, primarily for drug offenses. Conversely, girls placed in suburban neighborhoods were more likely to be convicted of a criminal offense. Qualitative data indicate that children placed in the suburbs experienced a dramatic reduction in direct exposure to gangs and drugs. Children placed in higher SES neighborhoods within Chicago still attended lower performing schools and the surrounding neighborhoods offered many opportunities for participation in delinquent activities.

Neighborhood resources, racial segregation, and economic mobility: Results from the Gautreaux program

This study uses the unique design of the Gautreaux residential mobility program to estimate the long-run impacts of placement neighborhood conditions on the AFDC receipt ( N = 793) and employment levels ( N = 1258) of low-income Black women. We find that women initially placed in neighborhoods with few Black residents and moderate to high neighborhood resources experienced significantly more time employed when compared with women placed in neighborhoods with higher concentrations of Blacks and a low level of resources. Women placed in neighborhoods with high levels of resources and low Black populations also spent significantly less time on welfare than women placed in highly Black segregated areas with low levels of resources.

Participation in a residential mobility program from the client's perspective: Findings from Gautreaux Two

In 2002, the Gautreaux Two housing mobility program provided low‐income families living in Chicago public housing with the opportunity to move to more affluent, less racially isolated communities. This article presents findings on their complex search and moving process. Only about one‐third of enrolled families actually moved through the program ("leased‐up"). In‐depth interviews with a randomly chosen sample of 71 families and an additional 20 “likely mover” families showed that movers fell into four groups distinguished by personal characteristics that made it easier for them to move or by residence on Chicago's North Side. Nonmovers faced a variety of obstacles, both external (a tight rental market, discrimination, and bureaucratic delays) and internal (limited experience and program comprehension, large household size, and health problems). Also, some nonmovers were too busy with work or school to engage in what proved to be an onerous process of identifying a suitable unit and moving.

Spatial mismatch, discrimination, and male youth employment in the Washington, DC area: Implications for residential mobility policies

Residential mobility policies are in part premised on the assumption that place and not race explains blacks' joblessness in central cities. The article investigates the potential effects of residential mobility programs by analyzing a “natural” black residential mobility process in the Washington, DC area, where black suburbanization has coincided with suburban job growth. Using data from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS), this article examines the relative contribution of place and race in explaining racial differences in employment for young men with a high school diploma or less. The results show that having a suburban residential location improves young males' spatial access to jobs, but that the employment benefits are greater for white than comparable black youth. Simulations point to racial discrimination in suburban labor markets being as important as having a suburban residential location as an explanation of white-black employment rate differences in the Washington, DC area. Thus, if residential mobility programs are to be fully effective in improving central city minorities' employment prospects, antidiscrimination enforcement efforts in suburban labor markets must be included in the policy package.© 1998 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management

Residential Mobility and Public Programs: Current Gaps Between Theory and Practice

While residential mobility (the relocation of a household from one dwelling to another) is a fundamental element of the urban system at both individual and aggregate levels, and although there is a voluminous literature on mobility, the contribution of this literature to planning and public policy has been quite minimal. In earlier papers we examined some of the reasons for the poor links between academic research and public policy and outlined general approaches which might be taken to provide the kinds of information which would be useful to policy‐makers. In this paper we examine the effects of public programs on mobility and the ways in which mobility affects public programs. Public programs or policy are categorized as those having direct effects on mobility (the housing programs) and those with indirect effects (rent control and busing). Even though a significant proportion of the mobility that occurs in cities is simply not related to any government program, there is evidence that mobility may not be insensitive to policy manipulation. The provision of housing subsidies in Holland and local context variation (such as rent control) from city to city may have important effects on the levels of mobility. The results of this review and analysis emphasize that mobility is not a simple choice of moving or staying but one of a large number of options for achieving a change in individual status and therefore in the urban system.