Publications
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Housing, Neighborhoods, and Opportunity: The Location of New York City’s Subsidized Affordable Housing
This report examines changes in the location and neighborhood characteristics of subsidized rental housing in New York City. The study shows that the distribution of subsidized rental units across New York City’s neighborhoods changed significantly between 2002 and 2011, not just as a result of new development, but also because of differential opt-out rates across neighborhoods. As a result, the city is losing affordable housing in the neighborhoods with the highest quality schools, lowest crime rates, and greatest access to jobs. Released in conjuction with the report, the Subsidized Housing Information Project (SHIP) is an online, searchable database of privately-owned, subsidized rental housing in New York City. View the press release or view the NYU Furman Center's infographic, New York City's Opt-Out Outlook.
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Race and Neighborhoods in the 21st Century: What Does Segregation Mean Today?
Recent research has argued that racial segregation is no longer a concern in the 21st century. In response, this paper revisits these concerns about racial segregation and neighborhoods to assess their relevance today. This working paper finds that while segregation levels between blacks and whites have certainly declined, they remain quite high; Hispanic and Asian segregation have, meanwhile, remained unchanged. Further, this paper shows that the neighborhood environments of minorities continue to be highly unequal to those enjoyed by whites. Blacks and Hispanics continue to live among more disadvantaged neighbors, to have access to lower performing schools, and to be exposed to more violent crime. Further, these differences are amplified in more segregated metropolitan areas. See the Research Brief: Race and Neighborhoods in the 21st Century.
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Do Vouchers Help Low Income Households Live in Safer Neighborhoods? Evidence on the Housing Choice Voucher Program
This article examines an important potential justification for the Housing Choice Voucher Program, namely, whether participants are able to access safer neighborhoods. We found that, in 2000, voucher households occupied neighborhoods that were about as safe as those housing the average poor renter household and were significantly safer than those in which households assisted through place-based programs lived.
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Building Environmentally Sustainable Communities: A Framework for Inclusivity
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has decided to include two key goals in all of its programs: encouraging sustainable communities and enhancing access to opportunity for lower-income people and people of color. This paper examines the relationship between these two goals through a literature review and an original empirical analysis of how these goals interact at the neighborhood and metropolitan area levels. We also offer policy recommendations for HUD.
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Spillovers and Subsidized Housing: The Impact of Subsidized Rental Housing on Neighborhoods
Rental housing is increasingly recognized as a vital housing option in the United States. Yet government policies and programs continue to grapple with widespread problems, including affordability, distressed urban neighborhoods, poor-quality housing stock, concentrated poverty, and exposure to health hazards in the home. These challenges can be costly and difficult to address. The time is ripe for fresh, authoritative analysis of this important yet often overlooked sector.
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Supporting Integrative Choices
The author draws on her research on racially integrated neighborhoods—and in particular neighborhoods shared by white and black households—in order to suggest a few policies that might help to promote racial integration.
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Is Segregation Bad for Your Health? The Case of Low Birth Weight
This paper explores the relationship between racial segregation and racial disparities in the prevalence of low birth weight. The paper has two parallel motivations. First, the disparities between black and white mothers in birth outcomes are large and persistent. Second, while there is a growing literature on the costs of racial segregation it has largely focused on economic outcomes such as education and employment.
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Nativity Differences in Neighborhood Quality Among New York City Households, 1996
In this paper we add to the literature on locational attainment of immigrants by focusing on a broader range of neighborhood quality indicators that has been done before and by examining the foreign-born contingent of a given ethnic group separately from the native-born contingent of that group. Specifically, we evaluate in New York City how immigrant households compare to native-born households, overall and by race and ethnicity, with respect to neighborhood characteristics such as crime, health outcomes, poverty, and unsafe housing.
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Spatial Inequality and the Distribution of Industrial Toxic Releases: Evidence From the 1990 TRI
This research investigates environmental justice activists’ claims that pollution is unevenly distributed across communities in the United States. We examine three possible explanations for environmental inequity: racial discrimination, economic stratification, and urban ecology.