Neighborhood Revitalization and Residential Sorting

Matthew Staiger, Giordano Palloni and John Voorheis

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: The HOPE VI Revitalization program sought to transform high-poverty neighborhoods into mixed-income communities through the demolition of public housing projects and the construction of new housing. We use longitudinal administrative data to investigate how the program affected both neighborhoods and individual residential outcomes. In line with the stated objectives, we find that the program reduced poverty rates in targeted neighborhoods and enabled subsidized renters to live in lower-poverty neighborhoods, on average. The primary beneficiaries were not the original neighborhood residents, most of whom moved away. Instead, subsidized renters who moved into the neighborhoods after an award experienced the largest reductions in neighborhood poverty. The program reduced the stock of public housing in targeted neighborhoods but expanded access to housing vouchers in other, lower-poverty neighborhoods. Spillover effects on the poverty rates of other neighborhoods were small and dispersed throughout the city. Our estimates imply that cities that revitalized half of their public housing stock reduced the average neighborhood poverty rate among all subsidized renters by 4.1 percentage points.

Keywords: Neighborhood Revitalization; Place-Based Policies; Segregation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I38 R23 R28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 80 pages
Date: 2024-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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https://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2024/adrm/ces/CES-WP-24-12.pdf First version, 2024 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:24-12

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