Doctoral Dissertation Research: Post-public Housing Spatial Concentration

玛丽·沃特斯伊娃·罗森哈佛大学在过去的十五年里，住房政策发生了重大转变。许多城市大规模公共住房的解散导致了社会动荡和贫困和弱势人口的流离失所。垂直贫民区--高层公共住房开发--已将自己改造成水平贫民区--住房代金券持有者集中在中等贫困社区。如果公共住房的改造将全国更多的贫困家庭安置在这样的社区，这些社区的特点不是城市社会学家长期研究的稳定、集中的贫困，而是中等贫困、住宅流动和社会无序的高比率，这可能意味着，社区传递各种利弊的机制已经发生了根本性的改变。这种背景如何塑造和约束居民对他们所在社区的期望和取向？为什么以及如何居民最终会住进这些后公房时代的新社区？这些问题通过巴尔的摩的一个案例研究社区得到解决。本论文基于人种学观察和对居民和社区成员的120次深度访谈相结合，包括代金券持有者、房主、无人帮助的租户、社区成员和房东。更广泛的影响随着公共住房高层建筑的拆除，以及购房券数量的大幅增加，许多人搬到了新的地区，不成比例地集中在中等贫困、住宅不稳定程度较高的社区。这种戏剧性的变化为研究人员和政策制定者提供了更多的动力，让他们更多地了解这些社区促进了什么类型的社会组织，以及新的社会关系如何塑造与流动性有关的文化图式，这些文化图式在贫困的社会再生产中发挥着关键作用。这项研究有助于了解这些模式，这些模式可以用来促进而不是损害住房援助接受者的福祉和未来前景。这项研究表明，尽管住房代金券可能是解决住房负担能力问题的有价值和有效的工具，但市场化的解决方案在解决美国S贫民窟贫困问题方面存在固有的局限性。

SES-1303585Mary WatersEva RosenHarvard UniversityIn the past fifteen years there has been an important transformation in housing policy. The dissolution of large-scale public housing in many cities has resulted in social turmoil and the displacement of poor and vulnerable populations. The vertical ghetto -- the high-rise public housing development -- has remade itself into the horizontal ghetto -- the concentration of housing voucher holders in moderately poor neighborhoods. If the transformation of public housing has placed more of the nation's needy households in neighborhoods that are characterized not by the stable, concentrated poverty that urban sociologists long studied, but by moderate poverty, and high rates of residential churning and social disorder, it might mean that the mechanisms by which neighborhoods transmit various advantages and disadvantages have been fundamentally transformed. How does this context shape and constrain residents' expectations and orientations toward their neighborhood? Why and how do residents end up in these new post-public housing neighborhoods? These questions are addressed through a case study neighborhood in Baltimore. The dissertation relies on a combination of ethnographic observations and 120 in-depth interviews with residents and community members, including voucher holders, homeowners, unassisted renters, community members, and landlords. Broader ImpactsWith the dismantling of the public housing high-rises, and the important increase in the number of housing vouchers, many have moved to new areas, concentrating disproportionately in moderately poor neighborhoods with high residential instability. This dramatic change provides an impetus for researchers and policymakers to learn more about what kinds of social organization these neighborhoods facilitate and how new social relations shape cultural schema pertaining to mobility, which play a crucial role in the social reproduction of poverty. This research contributes to knowledge about these patterns that can be used to promote, rather than compromise the wellbeing and future prospects of the recipients of housing assistance. This research suggests that although housing vouchers may be a valuable and effective tool for solving housing affordability problems, a market-based solution is inherently limited for solving America?s ghetto poverty problem.