Mixed housing only one step: “Broader efforts are needed”
University of Chicago social services administration professor Robert Chaskin released a study that shows slowness in community formation between residents of different economic backgrounds in mixed income housing.
The study looked at three Chicago mixed housing communities and found that lower income residents generally “stuck together” in forming neighbourly bonds. The study also found some tension between market and subsidized residents around the issue of crime.
Noting a need to go beyond just putting up “mixed housing,” a press release form UC concludes:
“Broader efforts are needed to reduce social inequality and promote economic development…”
Assuming that this trend isn’t a Chicago anomaly, it is important that proponents of mixed income housing are aware that efforts to create an integrated community must go beyond simple gestures (holding a community bingo night might not be enough to form bonds between a diverse group of residents).
3 comments:
When research is focused on children though the benefits of mixed income become very clear - check out this study from UBC: http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/media/releases/2009/mr-09-090.html
Also check out this report: Making Early Childhood Development
a Priority: Lessons from Vancouver
By Clyde Hertzman - describes the data from The National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth
"Children who grow up in safe and cohesive neighbourhoods do better,
in general, than those from dangerous and socially fragmented
neighbourhoods. Similarly, children from vulnerable family backgrounds
who grow up in mixed income neighbourhoods tend to fare
better than those who grow up in uniformly low-income neighbourhoods."
Another Chicago related story, comes from the 1970s, where the "Chicago Housing Authority" was taken to court on their policy of building low-income housing only in high poverty neighbor hoods.
The court case was based on race, but discriminatory practices are not only confined to that definition:
"Racially discriminatory public housing programs violate the 5th Amendment and Civil Rights Act of 1964, and remedial action to alleviate the effects of such a practice not only is appropriate but also extends beyond city limits to the housing market of the city."
"The significance of the case lies in the sociological conclusions that can be drawn from it. A number of families chose to move, while others stayed... researchers studying the two... concluded that low-income women who moved to the suburbs "clearly experienced improved employment and earnings, even though the program provided no job training or placement services."... The disparity arguably proves that concentrated poverty is self-perpetuating and simply alleviating this concentration offers an avenue for improving the quality of life of those afflicted by urban poverty."
OUTCOMES are the important thing here... no one is saying that it would be easy... but we must keep our goals in focus...
(See "wikipedia.org/wiki/Hills_v._Gautreaux")
More from Clyde Hertzman's report:
"Segregated poor neighbourhoods are at the highest risk
The character of the urban environment can make an important difference for child development. Like
most major Canadian cities, Vancouver’s neighbourhoods are gradually becoming more economically
stratified. Families with young children are concentrated in areas of the city that are closest to commercial
districts and transportation zones, rather than in neighbourhoods designed for child rearing – mainly due
to zoning, a greater supply of affordable housing, and high vacancy rates near to commercial districts.
Also, the majority of non-market housing for families in Vancouver has been built in existing low-socioeconomic
areas – increasing the level of segregation. These are the neighbourhoods at highest developmental
risk.
However, Vancouver is also a showpiece for urban forms that support early child development. In two
neighbourhoods, Granville Island/Fairview Slopes and Champlain Heights, middle class and non-market
housing have been ‘plan-fully’ mixed together. In these neighbourhoods developmental outcomes are
better than would be predicted based upon individual family risks alone. In Vancouver, children whose
family backgrounds might put them at risk, but who live in mixed-income neighbourhoods, tend to be
protected compared to their counterparts in low socio-economic segregated neighbourhoods. In other
words, it seems that mixed neighbourhoods lead to lower levels of developmental vulnerability than
economically segregated poor neighbourhoods. This has been recognized in the United States for several
years (see Duncan and Brooks-Gunn), but it is just now being recognized that Canadian cities are ghettoized
enough in places for the same differences to be detected here."
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