Integration and Exclusion: Urban Poverty, Public Housing Reform, and the Dynamics of Neighborhood Restructuring. Issue 1 (May 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chaskin, Robert J.
• Editors: Small, Mario L.; Allard, Scott W.
• Is Part Of: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Volume 647:Issue 1(2013)
• Page Start: 237
• Page End: 267
• Publication Date: 2013-05
• Subjects: public housing -- social capital -- social exclusion -- mixed-income development; Social sciences -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- United States -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- Periodicals; 300
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716213478548
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0002-7162

Abstract

Much contemporary policy seeking to address the problems of urban poverty and the failures of public housing focuses on deconcentrating poverty through the relocation of public housing residents to less-poor neighborhoods or by replacing large public housing complexes with mixed-income developments. Lying behind these efforts is a set of generally integrationist goals, aiming to remove public housing residents from contexts of isolation and concentrated disadvantage and settle them in safer, healthier, and more supportive environments that better connect them to resources, relationships, and opportunities. Although some of the goals of these efforts are being met, the broader integrationist goals are proving elusive. Focusing on the mixed-income component of Chicago's Plan for Transformation—the most ambitious effort to remake public housing in the country—this article argues that a range of institutional actors (including developers, property management, community-based organizations, and the housing authority) and organizational behaviors (around design, service provision, intervention, deliberation, and representation) shape dynamics that reproduce exclusion and work against the integrationist goals of these policies.