by Katie Gourley, Graduate Research Assistant
What would it take to make new neighborhoods, and remake old ones, so that large, complex, metropolitan areas moved decisively toward racial and economic integration? What local and regional governance strategies could most effectively overcome barriers to these goals?
Today, we published four papers exploring these questions. The papers—an overview essay and case studies of Washington, DC, Houston, and Chicago—were presented at
A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality, a symposium we hosted in April 2017. The four papers are:
Pathways to Inclusion: Contexts for Neighborhood Integration in Chicago, Houston, and Washington, by Rolf Pendall, who moderated this panel at our symposium, offers an overview of the major demographic changes that are transforming US housing markets and describes two distinct patterns of political geography that will affect local and regional decisionmaking about neighborhood inclusion. He begins by reporting that the population of the United States –
particularly its metropolitan areas – is both growing and becoming more diverse
by age, race and ethnicity, household composition, and income. He then
describes the two principal patterns of political geography that affect decisionmaking about neighborhood inclusion: fragmentation of
local governments (particularly in the Northeast and Midwest where control of
land use is in the hands of many local governments) and polycentricity
(particularly in the South and the West, where larger county governments have
much more control over land uses). Fostering inclusion in both types of places
is challenging. In the former regions, he notes, it tends to require
state-level action. In the latter, the efforts often focus on school districts as
well as school assignment zones within particularly large school districts. He
concludes by showing the interplay between the national demographic trends and
political geographies of the three case study regions.
An Equitable Future for the Washington, DC Region?: A "Regionalism Light" Approach to Building, by Willow Lung-Amam, begins by noting that while that DC region is racially and economically diverse, it also is highly segregated and has some of the nation's highest housing prices. Moreover, because it is politically fragmented, it has uneven patterns
of development. Given this, Lung-Aman proposes a “regionalism-light”
approach that focuses on the protection and production of affordable housing.
In particular, she says four approaches should be the central part of any
effort to break down barriers to housing inclusion in existing neighborhoods and
build a strong platform for current and future residents to be a part of the
region’s continued growth and prosperity: preserving existing
affordable units through aggressive anti-displacement strategies; capturing
land value to produce new affordable housing, especially near transit stations;
increasing the density and diversity of suburban housing; and tackling the
region’s stark east-west divide with fair-share policies.
Can a Market-Oriented City Also Be Inclusive?, by William Fulton, explains that while Houston has emerged in the last 30-plus years as one of the country's most ethnically diverse and affordable cities, these measures mask significant amounts of inequality and disparity that are at least as bad as, and perhaps worse than, those in other metro areas. At first glance, he notes, Houston seems unable to address these
challenges, largely because it has a reputation for being one of the nation’s most
market-oriented cities for real estate development. However, he
contends, the city has a unique and important opportunity to address these
issues because it also has abundant amounts of vacant land, limited zoning
regulations that could block the development of affordable housing, regulatory tools that could encourage such development, and a potentially
useful but currently uncoordinated set of financial incentives for economic
development and real estate development. Accomplishing this task, he explains, would
require both a comprehensive citywide approach and targeted efforts in
underserved neighborhoods threatened by gentrification. In particular, the following strategies are especially promising: aligning both economic development
incentives and regulations with inclusiveness goals; using government and
institutional landholdings to strategically to pursue those goals; and creating
a broad and comprehensive approach to inclusiveness that includes both
underserved and high-opportunity areas. He notes that while
Houston has taken some steps in this direction, it has fallen short in
others, particularly in efforts to bring affordable housing to high-opportunity areas.
(Please note that Fulton's paper was completed before Hurricane Harvey caused extensive damage and displacement in Houston during August 2017.)
Two Extremes of Residential Segregation: Chicago's Separate Worlds & Policy Strategies for Integraion, by Marisa Novara and Amy Khare, argues that a movement is needed to rethink strategies for desgregation at the region's two poles: concentrated poverty and concentrated wealth. The Chicago region, they note, ranks in the top quarter of all metros with
regard to economic segregation and is in danger of becoming even more segregated by race and class. In areas suffering
from disinvestment, Novara and Khare argue that carefully revised lending
criteria and improved appraisal processes, along with other complimentary
policies, could lead to increased investment. This, in turn, might create more
integrated communities. In contrast, they note that political realities make it unlikely that the state will step in to override local land-use restrictions that stymie the development of affordable housing (as Massachusetts has done via a law passed in 1969). Given this situation, they suggest that Illinois instead draw on a different Massachusetts law that offers incentives to more affluent communities that zone for dense, mixed-income residential developments, particularly in locations well-served by transit.
Additional papers from the A Shared Future symposium are available on the JCHS website. The papers will also be collected into an edited volume to be published later this year.
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