Doctoral Dissertation Research: Post-public Housing Spatial Concentration

哈佛大学在过去的15年中，住房政策发生了重要的转变。许多城市大规模公共住房的解体导致社会动荡，贫困和弱势人口流离失所。垂直的贫民区——高层公共住房开发项目——已经重塑为水平的贫民区——住房券持有者集中在中等贫困社区。如果公共住房的改造使全国更多的贫困家庭居住在社区中，而不是城市社会学家长期研究的那种稳定、集中的贫困，而是中等贫困、高住宅动荡率和社会混乱率，这可能意味着社区传递各种优势和劣势的机制已经从根本上发生了转变。这种环境如何塑造和约束居民对社区的期望和取向？为什么居民们最终会住进这些新的后公共住房社区？这些问题是通过对巴尔的摩社区的案例研究来解决的。这篇论文结合了民族志观察和120个对居民和社区成员的深度访谈，包括代金券持有人、房主、无人协助的租房者、社区成员和房东。更广泛的影响随着高层公共住房的拆除和住房券数量的显著增加，许多人搬到了新的地区，不成比例地集中在居住高度不稳定的中等贫困社区。这种戏剧性的变化为研究人员和政策制定者提供了动力，让他们更多地了解这些社区促进了什么样的社会组织，以及新的社会关系如何塑造与流动性相关的文化模式，这在贫困的社会再生产中起着至关重要的作用。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，尽管住房券可能是解决住房负担能力问题的一个有价值和有效的工具，但以市场为基础的解决方案在解决美国住房负担能力问题方面具有内在的局限性。美国贫民窟贫困问题。

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.