Preface

I have been researching public housing transformation for close to fifteen years now. The work began broadly as an analysis of policy initiatives being implemented in many cities to deconcentrate poverty that led to publication of Clearing the Way: Deconcentrating the Poor in Urban America in 2003. In this current book I focus on only one element of deconcentration policy, the dismantling of old public housing communities and their frequent (but not inevitable) replacement by mixed-income developments. Thus the book has in many ways a more narrowly constructed focus. In other respects, however, the dismantling of public housing has very broad implications and represents a shift in policy that is more notable than that of deconcentration. The radical remaking of public housing is an important watershed moment in American domestic policy. An entire policy landscape and urban landscape are being remade. The dismantling of public housing represents the repudiation of a New Deal policy orientation that saw merit in large-scale government social interventions, and that reflected faith that such interventions could produce positive outcomes. It reverses seventy years of social policy in the United States and reflects a fundamental reorientation of urban social policy. The new urban landscape will reflect the new policy environment that privileges market initiatives and reduces the reach of state intervention. This book attempts to provide some perspective on this epoch-changing initiative.

My study makes use of original data analysis and a synthesis of dozens of other studies of public housing displacement and relocation that have been conducted across the country. The main dataset I have assembled to analyze this question has been created from various sources, including three separate Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests made of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) between 2004 and 2007. These data provide the opportunity to analyze public housing transformation in ways that are completely unique. Large portions of chapters 2 and 4 are based on a quantitative analysis of the HUD demolition data. The more technical matters associated with the quantitative analysis, including the specification of the model and description of variables, are contained in the appendix. In the body of the book I present enough of a description of the analysis to allow all readers to follow the logic of the analysis and to understand the findings.

About five years ago I created a “Google Alert” for myself using the terms “public housing” and “demolition.” Each time those terms appear in a searchable document I am notified by e-mail. As a result I have been reading news accounts and opinion pieces related to public housing demolition in cities across the country more or less in real time, as they have occurred. Three things have struck me about what I have been reading over the past years. The first is the sheer volume of articles that have crossed my desktop. It is a rare day when one or two articles do not pop up in my e-mail basket. The movement to dismantle public housing is truly nationwide, and is taking place in communities such as Rome, Georgia, Danville, Illinois, and Waterbury, Connecticut, as well as in Chicago, Atlanta, and Philadelphia. The volume of stories is sometimes difficult to keep up with. Also noticeable about the movement to dismantle public housing is the similarity of the issues being debated from place to place. They include the general optimism of local officials about improving the neighborhoods containing public housing, and the terms used by local officials to describe the housing they intend to demolish. The public housing is often referred to, by officials or by reporters, in terms that suggest it is obsolete, even anachronistic, and often neglected or run-down. In the book I argue that there is a discourse of disaster about public housing in the United States. Typically this discourse emphasizes social pathologies such as crime, violence, family breakdown, and drugs. But the storyline also includes milder references to the obsolescence of public housing and a sense that it is unfit for further habitation in most places. Another issue that surfaces in many accounts of public housing demolition is the concern about the loss of affordable housing in the city that will result. Almost invariably in these accounts, advocates or residents, or sometimes the reporter, will raise the issue of how the loss of these units will affect the availability of low-cost housing locally. Finally, the stories of public housing demolition across the country almost without exception show the mixed responses of residents, some of whom are glad to see the change and many of whom complain about their communities being torn apart. Some will look with anticipation to the day they can move out while others talk about their community as a decent place to live, and one that they will miss. There is often a fear of what lies ahead among those concerned about losing their homes. I have tried to explore these themes and more in this book, drawing from a wide range of examples from cities and towns across the country.

The third characteristic of these online stories of public housing demolition that has struck me is the number of stories that originate in Canada, Australia, and elsewhere. I have often been two-thirds of the way through an article before realizing that I was reading about public housing demolition in an Australian city or a Canadian town. What I know about public housing demolition in those countries is largely limited to the accounts I have come across in this fashion but the similarities with the U.S. situation are striking and deserve greater attention.

I have benefitted greatly by assistance and encouragement of many people along the way. Karen Chapple has helped me think through and develop an understanding of why dispersal programs have produced so few benefits for low-income persons. Janet Smith, Larry Bennett, Derek Hyra, David Imbroscio, and Susan Greenbaum have provided feedback and encouragement on this and other projects. Hoang Ton helped with the data collection for this project and Jeff Matson made the maps. My colleagues at Minnesota, including Yingling Fan and Ryan Allen, provided comments on methods and early findings. Michael Rich made extremely helpful suggestions for the case-study chapter. Bill Wilen steered me to the issues and legal cases related to de facto demolition. Laura Harris and I have tried to organize a group of scholars doing HOPE VI research. The group exists as a loosely connected band of researchers, hoping that at some point something larger than merely the sum of our individual work will emerge. HUD, to date, has not been altogether encouraging of this effort, though they have done nothing to discourage our collaboration.

Portions of the book have appeared in earlier published work. Material on the HOPE VI project in Duluth, Minnesota first appeared in “Better Neighborhoods, Better Outcomes? Explaining Relocation Outcomes in HOPE VI,” Cityscape 12, 1 (2010): 5–31. I would like to thank the editors for vetting that work. I also thank Taylor and Francis, publishers of Housing Policy Debate and Housing Studies, for permission to reuse material that appeared in “ ‘You Gotta Move’: Advancing the Debate on the Record of Dispersal,” co-authored with Karen Chapple, Housing Policy Debate 20, 2 (2010): 1–28, and “Desegregation in 3D: Displacement, Dispersal, and Development in American Public Housing,” Housing Studies 25, 2 (2010): 137–58. Sage Publications kindly granted permission to reuse material from “Gentrification in Black and White: The Racial Impact of Public Housing Demolition in American Cities,” Urban Studies 48, 8 (2011): 1581–1604. Finally, John Wiley & Sons provided permission to reuse material from “Where Have All the Towers Gone? The Dismantling of Public Housing in U.S. Cities,” Journal of Urban Affairs 33, 3 (2011): 267–87.