Hess, Christian; Walter, Rebecca J.; Acolin, Arthur; Chasins, Sarah. (2019). Comparing Small Area Fair Market Rents with Other Rental Measures across Diverse Housing Markets. Cityscape, 21(3), 159 – 186.
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Abstract
Small Area Fair Market Rents (SAFMRs) are calculated at the 40th percentile of the U.S. postal ZIP Code instead of the metropolitan area in an effort to capture localized rents to expand choice for voucher holders to access housing in higher-opportunity neighborhoods. Existing studies on the potential and actual outcomes of SAFMRs demonstrate that findings vary for different types of housing markets. Furthermore, the decisions public housing authorities (PHAs) make in the implementation process affect PHAs' program budget and the rent burden and locational outcomes for voucher households. This study aims to address how these implementation factors are affected by local rental market conditions for three PHAs-Housing Authority of the City of Fort Lauderdale, San Antonio Housing Authority, and Seattle Housing Authority-in diverse housing markets. By comparing different sources of market rent estimates with SAFMRs in each location, we contribute new information about how this rule is likely to produce different residential outcomes in terms of increased access to low-poverty neighborhoods and adjustments to payment standards in low-rent neighborhoods. The findings reveal differences across rent measures in terms of estimated levels and relative differences across ZIP Codes. These findings suggest that housing authorities may face challenges in meeting the objectives of the SAFMR final rule without some form of local adjustments.]
Acolin, Arthur; Vitiello, Domenic. (2018). Who Owns Chinatown: Neighbourhood Preservation and Change in Boston and Philadelphia. Urban Studies, 55(8), 1690 – 1710.
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Abstract
The survival of Chinatowns and other ethnic enclaves in cities is largely determined by who owns property. Ethnic enclaves such as Chinatowns have traditionally played important economic, social and cultural functions as places for recent immigrants to live and work, though Chinatowns have long faced redevelopment pressures. In North America, as Chinese immigrants and their descendants settle in the suburbs, and as historic Chinatowns’ locations close to revitalising downtowns attract increasing investment, the future of these historic enclaves is shaped by various, often intense and divergent, forces. This article describes changes in the patterns of property ownership in Boston and Philadelphia’s downtown Chinatowns over the last decade (2003–2013) and relates them to changes and continuities in these neighbourhoods’ population, commercial activities and building stock. The trends we observe simultaneously reinforce and complicate debates about gentrification and longstanding efforts to preserve these Chinatowns as ethnic Chinese residential, commercial, and cultural centres.]
Keywords
Chinatown, Ethnic Enclave, Neighbourhood Change, Ownership
Ruoniu (Vince) Wang is an Assistant Professor in the Runstad Department of Real Estate in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington. He studies spatial justice and inclusive communities, including their impacts reflected in the built environment, human behaviors, and policy interventions. Vince joined the University of Washington after serving six years as the research manager and director in a national non-profit organization Grounded Solutions Network. He has designed and conducted a U.S. Census of inclusionary housing policies, a U.S. census of community land trusts, and a national performance evaluation of shared equity homeownership programs. His research expands to policy evaluation for the two largest federal assisted housing rental programs in the U.S.: the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program and the Housing Choice Voucher program. Vince grounds his research with applied tools to democratize data for low-income communities.
Manzo, Lynne C. (2014). On Uncertain Ground: Being at Home in the Context of Public Housing Redevelopment. International Journal Of Housing Policy, 14(4), 389 – 410.
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Abstract
The recent global financial crisis increased the volatility of housing markets and furthered the ongoing disinvestment in public sector housing. This disinvestment has been manifest in urban restructuring programmes involving both the privatisation and the wholesale demolition of public/social housing. For example, programmes like HOPE VI in the USA have radically altered the landscape of public housing through the demolition of tens of thousands of housing units nationwide. However, what of the people who occupied this housing, and what of the lives they had built there? In such a context, deliberating on the notion of being at home becomes a pressing task, necessitating serious consideration of the lived experience of place and place attachments among those who have been displaced by such programmes. While research has studied outcomes such as the quality of the new neighbourhood and household economic stability, it does not adequately address the lived experience of place and the disruptions that forced relocation can cause. This paper brings the literature on place attachment into the discussion of urban restructuring programmes and discusses the findings of several empirical studies on place attachment to provide a more complete picture of the impacts of such programmes on poor people. It demonstrates how place attachments in the context of public housing are complicated by poverty, power dynamics, ambivalence, and stigma, underscoring how attachments are formed through the interplay of policy and programme rhetoric, and the active processes of meaning making among residents. Policy implications of considering place attachments in public housing redevelopment efforts are also addressed.
Keywords
Public Housing; Housing Development; Housing Market; Housing Assistance Agencies; Urbanization; Global Financial Crisis, 2008-2009; Being At Home; Hope Vi; Place Attachment; Urban Restructuring Programmes; Relocation; Residents; Stability; Landscape; Neighborhoods; Stigma; Poverty; Radicalism; Ambivalence; Public Policy; Social Programs; Public Finance; Public Sector; Economic Stabilization; Housing Authorities; International Finance; Economic Crisis; Privatization; Demolition; Volatility; Redevelopment; Low Income Groups; Rhetoric
Acolin, Arthur; Hoek-Smit, Marja C.; Eloy, Claudia Magalhaes. (2019). High Delinquency Rates in Brazil’s Minha Casa Minha Vida Housing Program: Possible Causes and Necessary Reforms. Habitat International, 83, 99 – 110.
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Abstract
Brazil's main housing program, Minha Casa Minha Vida (MCMV), has contracted the construction of over 3 million housing units since 2009, providing access to homeownership for low and middle-income households through a combination of credit, subsidies and guarantees. In this paper, we analyze disaggregated delinquency information at the project level for the section of the program that serves households in the lowest income range (Faixa 1). Our analysis of program performance in six metropolitan regions shows an overall level of delinquency of 28% as of the end of 2015. We identify four hypotheses to explain this elevated level of delinquency: the peripheral location of the units, insufficient income to cover ongoing costs, moral hazard in the management of the program, and organized crime in some projects. Our analysis shows that in 4 of the 6 regions, low-income projects in peripheral locations exhibit substantially higher non-payment levels and that lower income households have higher levels of delinquency. Based on our analysis, we recommend modifications to program design, including the inclusion of location criteria in subsidy scaling. The findings provide evidence of the limits of MCMV Faixa l's approach to solving Brazilian low-income housing needs and contribute to an emerging body of literature pointing to the importance of location in housing programs.
Keywords
Income; Urban Growth; Housing; Home Ownership; Moral Hazard; Affordable Housing; Delinquency Rate; Housing Program; Integrated Urban Development; Programa Minha Casa Minha Vida; Social Housing; Mexico; Scale
Hess, Chris; Colburn, Gregg; Crowder, Kyle; Allen, Ryan. (2020). Racial Disparity in Exposure to Housing Cost Burden in the United States: 1980-2017. Housing Studies.
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Abstract
This article uses the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to analyse Black-White differences in housing cost burden exposure among renter households in the USA from 1980 to 2017, expanding understanding of this phenomenon in two respects. Specifically, we document how much this racial disparity changed among renters over almost four decades and identify how much factors associated with income or housing costs explain Black-White inequality in exposure to housing cost burden. For White households, the net contribution of household, neighbourhood and metropolitan covariates accounts for much of the change in the probability of housing cost burden over time. For Black households, however, the probability of experiencing housing cost burden continued to rise throughout the period of this study, even after controlling for household, neighbourhood and metropolitan covariates. This suggests that unobserved variables like racial discrimination, social networks or employment quality might explain the increasing disparity in cost burden among for Black and White households in the USA.
Keywords
Cost Burden; Housing Cost; Racial Inequality; Income Inequality; Rent Burden; Affordability; Neighborhoods; Segregation; Dynamics; Hardship; Prices; Market; Poor
Taufen, Anne; Yocom, Ken. (2021). Transitions In Urban Waterfronts: Imagining, Contesting, And Sustaining The Aquatic/terrestrial Interface. Sustainability, 13(1).
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Abstract
Urban waterfronts represent hybrid locations of ecological, economic, and social zones of transition and dispersal, spatially reified between land and water. Yet, through advancements in technology and the emergence of globally linked economies, the structure and function of urban waterfronts as economic and industrial drivers is becoming increasingly complex. As cities seek to redevelop their waterfronts in response to these changes, recent research and scholarship has focused on understanding the ecological, social, and economic benefits derived from urban waterfronts. This research reveals that their benefits are unevenly distributed among local and regional populations as sites of accumulated inequity and inaccessibility that are generative for only a relatively small percentage of the people living in a metropolitan area. Set within this paradoxical nexus, this paper frames a call to scientists, planners, academics, and waterfront activists to expand urban waterfront research from an indicator and benefits model to incorporate three conceptual tools for better understanding key dimensions of waterfront reclamation within the context of green infrastructure research: urban hybridity, functional performance and hierarchies of access. We explore these key dimensions in relation to the waterfront redevelopment of Tacoma, Washington, USA. By acknowledging the hybridity of urban waterfronts, we illustrate that their relative performance and accessibility require ongoing empirical study and practical intervention. Our theoretical explorations plot some of the potential areas of investigation for examining the structural and functional transitions of urban waterfronts as critical locations for green infrastructure development for the 21st century.
Keywords
Place Attachment; Community Participation; Cities; Justice; Indicators; Challenges; Resilience; Governance; Space; Urban Waterfronts; Complexity; Urban Hybridity; Functional Performance; Hierarchies Of Access; Public Access; Stormwater Management; Infrastructure; Reclamation; Green Aspects; Waterfront Development; Urban Areas; Terrestrial Environments; Waterfronts; Economics; Hierarchies; Redevelopment; Regulation; Dispersal; Economic Activity; Shorelines; Regions; Terrestrial Ecosystems; Sustainable Development; Structure-function Relationships; Ports; Rivers; Metropolitan Areas; Urbanization; United States--us
Zhang, Su; Migliaccio, Giovanni C.; Zandbergen, Paul A.; Guindani, Michele. (2014). Empirical Assessment of Geographically Based Surface Interpolation Methods for Adjusting Construction Cost Estimates by Project Location. Journal Of Construction Engineering And Management, 140(6).
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Keywords
Construction; Interpolation; Project Management; Geographically Based Surface Interpolation Methods; Construction Cost Estimates; Project Location; Construction Projects; Proximity-based Interpolation; Location Factor; Proximity-based Method; Global Spatial Autocorrelation; Cost Index Databases; Cost Estimators; Spatial Interpolation Techniques; Conditional Nearest Neighbor; Cnn; Inverse Distance Weighted; Idw Methods; Spatial Prediction Models; Distance Weighted Interpolation; Spatial Interpolation; Kriging Method; Precipitation; Temperature
Acolin, Arthur; Lin, Desen; Wachter, Susan M. (2019). Endowments and Minority Homeownership. Cityscape, 21(1), 5 – 62.
Abstract
Fifty years after the adoption of the 1968 Fair Housing Act that prohibits discrimination in the housing market, homeownership rates have not increased for Black or Hispanic households. The current homeownership rate for Black households is 42 percent, identical to the 1970 census reported level, and 48 percent for Hispanic households, lower than that in 1970. Using data from the 1989, 2005, and 2013 American Housing Surveys, we identify the extent to which group differences in household endowments account for persistently low minority homeownership levels.
Keywords
Borrowing Constraints; Household Formation; Race; Wealth; Trends; Rates
Jones-Smith, Jessica C.; Walkinshaw, Lina Pinero; Oddo, Vanessa M.; Knox, Melissa; Neuhouser, Marian L.; Hurvitz, Philip M.; Saelens, Brian E.; Chan, Nadine. (2020). Impact of a Sweetened Beverage Tax on Beverage Prices in Seattle, WA. Economics & Human Biology, 39.
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Abstract
Seattle's Sweetened Beverage Tax is an excise tax of 1.75 cents per ounce on sugar-sweetened beverages and is one of the highest beverage taxes in the U.S. This study examined the impact of Seattle's tax on the prices of beverages. We conducted audits of 407 retail food stores and eating places (quick service restaurants and coffee shops) before and 6 months after the tax was implemented in Seattle and in a comparison area. Ordinary least squares difference-in-differences models with store fixed effects were used to estimate the effect of the tax on prices, stratified by beverage type and store type. In secondary analyses, we assessed the effect of the tax on the price of non-taxed beverages and foods. Results from the adjusted difference-in-differences models indicated the tax was associated with an average increase of 1.58 cents per ounce among Seattle retailers, representing 90 % of the price of the tax. By store type, price increases were highest in smaller grocery stores and drug stores. By beverage type, price increases were highest for energy beverages and soda and lowest for bottled coffee and juice drinks. Prices of some nontaxed beverages also increased while the prices of select healthy foods generally did not. The sweetened beverage tax in Seattle is higher than beverage taxes in most other cities, and nearly the full cost of the tax is being passed through to consumers for many beverage types and stores types. (c) 2020 Published by Elsevier B.V.
Keywords
Soda Taxes; Food Policy; Health Policy; Beverage Taxes; Obesity