Race, and the Underclass, Public Policy

Michael H. Schill

doi:10.1111/j.1747-4469.1994.tb00765.x

1 The President's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders was appointed by President Johnson in 1967 after riots had devastated parts of such American cities as Detroit, Los Angeles, and Newark. The Commission's report issued in March 1968 examined the causes of the civil unrest and laid much of the blame on poverty and racism. See Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1968) (“Commission Report”).Google Scholar

2 For example, the Rockefeller Institute of Government sponsored a conference on 16 March 1993 that reunited several of the original members of the Kemer Commission as well as its research staff.Google Scholar

3 See, e.g., Lynn A. Curtis, Investing In Children and Youth: Reconstructing Our Cities, Report of the Eisenhower Foundation (Washington, D.C.: Eisenhower Foundation, 1993).Google Scholar

4 See, e.g., Symposium, “The Urban Crisis: The Kemer Commission Report Revisited,” 71 N.C.L. Rev. 1283-1785 (1993).Google Scholar

5 Commission Report at 1.Google Scholar

6 The use of the term “underclass” to refer to poor people who are detached from the labor force and often residents of neighborhoods of concentrated poverty is the subject of much scholarly debate. Some have argued that use of the word reinforces tendencies to “blame the victim” and could foster divisions among the poor. See, e.g., Gans, Herbert J., “Deconstructing the Undercclass,” 56 Am. Psychological J. 271 (1990); Michael B. Katz, “The Urban ‘Underclass’ as a Metaphor of Social Transformation,” in Michael B. Katz, ed., The “Underclass” Debate 3, 21-22 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993). My own previous work typically employs the terms “inner city poor” or “ghetto poor” in part to avoid being drawn into a debate I do not feel is productive. See, e.g., Shill, Michael H., “Deconcentrating the Inner City Poor,” 67 Chi. Kent L. Rev. 795 (1991). In this essay, I use “underclass” because that term is used by the authors of the book being reviewed.Google Scholar

7 See Paul A. Jargowsky & Mary Jo Bane, “Ghetto Poverty in the United States,”in Christopher Jencks & Paul E. Peterson, eds., The Urban Underclass 235, 252 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1991) (“Jencks & Peterson, Urban Underclass”). Jargowsky & Bane, at 251, include in their sample all census tracts in metropolitan areas.Google Scholar

8 See Mark A. Hughes, “Misspeaking Truth to Power: A Geographical Perspective on the ‘Underclass’ Fallacy,” 65 Econ. Geography 187, 194 (1989).Google Scholar

9 See Richard P. Nathan & Charles F. Adams, “Four Perspectives on Urban Hardship,” 104 Pol. Sci. Q. 483, 503 (1989).Google Scholar

10 See John C. Weicher, “How Poverty Neighborhoods Are Changing,”in Laurence E. Lynn, Jr., & Michael G. H. McGeary, eds., Inner-City Poverty in the United States 68, 70 (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1990) (“Lynn & McGeary, Inner-City Poverty”).Google Scholar

11 John D. Kasarda, “Inner-City Concentrated Poverty and Neighborhood Distress,” 4 Housing Pol'y Debate 253, 255-57 (1993).CrossRef Google Scholar

12 The population of extreme poverty tracts increased from 2.7 million in 1970 to 3.8 million in 1980 and 5.5 million in 1990. For distressed tracts, population increased from 1 million in 1970 to 4.9 million in 1980 and 5.7 million in 1990. Id. at 263.Google Scholar

13 From 1980 to 1990, the number of extreme poverty tracts rose from 1,330 to 1,954; as a proportion of all census tracts in the nation's one hundred largest cities, these tracts increased from 9.7% to 13.7%. For distressed tracts, the number increased from 1,513 in 1980 to 1,850 in 1990. Id. at 258. Although the number of extreme poverty and distressed tracts increased each decade, the rates of increase were less for 1980–90 than they were for 1970–80. Id. Google Scholar

14 See id. at 260-61. The number of extreme poverty tracts and distressed neighborhoods increased in the West from 1980 to 1990.Google Scholar

15 Id. at 278-81.Google Scholar

16 In 1990, 57.3% of the people living in extreme poverty tracts were non-Hispanic blacks. For distressed tracts, non-Hispanic blacks constituted 67.7% of the population. Id. at 263.Google Scholar

17 Ronald B. Mincy, “Ghetto Poverty: Black Problem or Harbinger of Things to Come?”in T. Boston, ed., 2 African American Economic Thought: Methodology and Policy (forthcoming).Google Scholar

18 Mincy defines an “under class” neighborhood in a way that is equivalent to Kasarda's distressed neighborhood, but Mincy utilizes data for all U.S. metropolitan areas rather than just the one hundred largest cities. See id. Google Scholar

19 For example, the proportion of residents living in underclass neighborhoods in metropolitan areas with 5-10 million residents who are black is 61%; the proportion living in extreme poverty neighborhoods is 52%. Id. Google Scholar

20 Of residents of extreme poverty tracts in metropolitan areas with fewer than 380,000 residents, 41% were non-Hispanic whites in 1990 compared with only 35% black. Nevertheless, blacks made up a greater share of underclass neighborhoods in these metropolitan areas than did whites. Id. Google Scholar

21 See Kasarda, 4 Housing Policy Debate at 276 (cited in note 11).Google Scholar

22 id. Google Scholar

23 See Charles Murray, Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 (New York: Basic Books, 1984) (“Murray, Losing Ground”).Google Scholar

24 See Myron Magnet, The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties' Legacy to the Underclass (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1993).Google Scholar

25 See Lawrence M. Mead, The New Politics of Poverty: The Nonworking Poor in America (New York: Basic Books, 1992).Google Scholar

26 See also William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) (“Wilson, Truly Disadvantaged”).Google Scholar

27 Murray, Losing Ground. Google Scholar

28 Id. at 145-91.Google Scholar

29 According to Massey and Denton (at 9), welfare programs have harmful effects only for groups that are residentially segregated.Google Scholar

30 See, e.g., Sheldon Danziger & Peter Gottschalk, “The Poverty of Losing Ground,”Challenge, May-June 1985, at 32; Greg J. Duncan & Saul D. Hoffman, “Welfare Benefits, Economic Opportunities, and Out-of-Wedlock Births among Black Teenage Girls,” 27 Demography 519, 530 (1990); David T. Ellwood & Mary Jo Bane, “The Impact of AFDC on Family Structure and Living Arrangements,” 7 Res. Lab. Econ. 137, 141 (1985); David T. Ellwood & Lawrence H. Summers, “Is Welfare Really the Problem?”Pub. Interest, Spring 1986, at 56, 68-69; Robert Greenstein, “Losing Faith in ‘Losing Ground,’”New Republic, 25 March 1985, at 12.Google Scholar

31 See, e.g., Sheldon Danziger et al., “How Income Transfer Programs Affect Work, Savings and the Income Distribution: A Critical Review,” 19 J. Econ. Lit. 975, 1019 (1981); Ellwood & Bane, 7 Res. Lab. Econ. at 142; Garfinkel, Irvin & Orr, Larry L., “Welfare Policy and the Employment Rate of AFDC Mothers,” 27 Nat'l Tax J. 275, 282–83 (1974).Google Scholar

32 See Wilson, Truly Disadvantaged 100-104.Google Scholar

33 Id. at 95-100.Google Scholar

34 Id. at 50-56.Google Scholar

35 Id. at 56-57.Google Scholar

36 See William Julius Wilson, “Studying Inner-City Social Dislocations: The Challenge of Public Agenda Research,” 56 Am. Soc. Rev. 1, 12 (1991).Google Scholar

37 See Christopher Jencks & Susan E. Mayer, “The Social Consequences of Growing Up in a Poor Neighborhood,”in Lynn & McGeary, Inner-City Poverty 111, 113-14 (cited in note 10).Google Scholar

38 Id. at 114-15.Google Scholar

39 See Elijah Anderson, “Neighborhood Effects on Teenage Pregnancy,”in Jencks & Peterson. Urban Underclass 373, 382-97 (cited in note 7) (describing cultural explanations for teenage pregnancy in ghetto communities); Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Duncan, Greg J., Klebanov, Pamela Kato & Sealand, Naomi, “Do Neighborhoods Influence Child and Adolescent Development 99 Am. J. Soc. 353 (1993) (the presence of affluent neighbors decreases the likelihood that teenagers will have children and drop out of school); Rebecca L. Clark, Neighborhood Effects on Dropping Out of School among Teenage Boys 16-21 (Urban Institute Discussion Paper PSC-DSC-UI-13, Dec. 1992) (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 1992) (rates of school dropouts among boys increase as the proportion of poor households in a community increases and as the proportion of households employed in middle-class occupations declines, although the results do not support a contagion theory); Jonathan Crane, “The Epidemic Theory of Ghettos and Neighborhood Effects on Dropping Out and Teenage Childbearing,” 96 Am. J. Soc. 1226, 1236 (1991) (as the proportion of high-status job holders in a community declines, teenage pregnancy and the rate of school dropouts increases exponentially, thereby supporting the contagion model); Paul Osterman, “Welfare Participation in a Full Employment Economy: The Impact of Neighborhood,” 38 Soc. Prob. 475, 486 (1991) (as the proportion of employed persons in a community decreases, the likelihood that an individual resident will receive public assistance increases).CrossRef Google Scholar

40 See, e.g., William Julius Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).Google Scholar

41 See Wilson, Truly Disadvantaged 12 (cited in note 26).Google Scholar

42 Id. at 30-33, 141.Google Scholar

43 Id. at 12.Google Scholar

44 Id. at 11.Google Scholar

45 Id. at 50.Google Scholar

46 Massey and Denton (at 84-86) respond to Wilson's argument that discrimination is unlikely to be at the root of underclass growth because it did not seem to be inhibiting middle-class blacks from residential mobility (see text accompanying note 45) by demonstrating that blacks of all income levels are segregated. The index of dissimilarity for blacks earning over $50,000 in northern metropolitan areas was 83.2, almost as large as the value for those earning less than $2,500 (85.8).Google Scholar

47 See also John F. Bauman, Public Housing, Race, and Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia, 1920-1974 at 167-74 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987); Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago 1940-1960 at 212-58 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Schill, Michael H., “Distressed Public Housing: Where Do We Go from Here 60 U. Chi. L. Rev. 497, 514–15 (1993) Michael H. Schill & Susan M. Wachter, “The Spatial Bias of Federal Housing Policy,” Wharton Real Estate Center Impact Paper, Philadelphia, 1994 (“Schill & Wachter. ‘Spatial Bias’”).CrossRef Google Scholar

48 Massey and Denton (at 145) are agnostic as to whether outmigration of middle-class blacks occurred to a significant degree in inner-city neighborhoods. Other social scientists have found support for Wilson's hypothesis. See, e.g. Edward Gramlich. Deborah hen, & Naomi Sealand, “Mobility into and out of Poor Urban Neighborhoods,”in Adele V. Harrell & George E. Peterson, eds., Drugs, Crime, and Social Isolation 241, 251 (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1992); Kathryn P. Nelson, “Racial Segregation, Mobility, and Poverty Concentrations” (presented at Population Association of America annual meeting, Washington, D.C., 22 March 1991).Google Scholar

49 See Wilson, Truly Disadvantaged 151-52.Google Scholar

50 Id. at 152-53.Google Scholar

51 Id. at 151.Google Scholar

52 Id. at 154.Google Scholar

53 In particular, they lament the lack of enforcement of the Fair Housing Act, initially because it lacked teeth and later because of executive branch disinterest. In 1988, Congress amended the Fair Housing Act to provide for greater federal enforcement. See Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, Pub. L. No. 100-430, §§810 et seq., 102 Stat 1619 (1988) (codified at 42 U.S.C. §§3610 et seq. (1988 & Supp. IV)).Google Scholar

54 They also recommend vigorous prosecution of hate crimes and increased scrutiny of realtor practices (at 232-33).Google Scholar

55 See Pub. L. No. 103-66, §13301, 107 Stat. 312 (1993).Google Scholar

56 See, e.g., Susan S. Jacobs & Michael Wasylenko, “Government Policy to Stimulate Economic Development: Enterprise Zones,”in Norman Walzer & David L. Chicoine, eds., Financing State and Local Government in the 1980s 175, 176 (Cambridge, Mass.: Oelgeschlager, Gunn, & Hain, 1981) (“the consensus is that local tax differentials have, at best, a secondary influence on business location decisions”); Dennis W. Carlton, “The Location and Employment Choices of New Firms: An Econometric Model with Discrete and Endogenous Variables,” 65 Rev. Econ. & Stat. 440, 447 (1983) (study shows that tax variables are not significantly related to business location). See also sources cited in Schill, 67 Chi-Kent L. Rew. at 809-10 nn.73-74 (cited in note 6).Google Scholar

57 These studies are reviewed in Holzer, Harry J., “The Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis: What Has the Evidence Shown 28 Urb. Scud. 105 (1991); Christopher Jencks & Susan E. Mayer, “Residential Segregation, Job Proximity, and Black Job Opportunities,”in Lynn & McGeary, Inner-City Poverty 187, 218 (cited in note 10); John F. Kain, “The Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis: Three Decades Later,” 3 Housing Pol'y Debate 371 (1992); Schill, Chi-Kent L. Rev. at 799-804 (cited in note 6).CrossRef Google Scholar

58 The Gautreaux program was instituted as a result of a successful lawsuit brought by residents of Chicago public housing developments challenging intentional segregation on the part of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) and HUD. In Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority, 503 F.2d 930 (7th Cir. 1974), aff'd sub. nom., Hills v. Gautreaux, 425 U.S. 284 (1976), the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ordered CHA and HUD to provide housing opportunities for minority applicants for public housing in nonsegregated areas of Chicago as well as its suburbs.Google Scholar

59 See James E. Rosenbaum & Susan J. Popkin, “Employment and Earnings of Low-Income Blacks Who Move to Middle-class Suburbs,”in Jencks & Peterson, Urban Underclass 342, 350-51 (cited in note 7).Google Scholar

60 See James E. Rosenbaum & Susan J. Popkin, Economic and Social Impacts of Housing Integration 21 (Mar. 1990) (report to the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation) (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University, 1990).Google Scholar

61 Id. Suburban residents found hospitals and doctors less likely than urban health care providers to accept Medicaid. Id. Google Scholar

62 See James E. Rosenbaum et al., Low-Income Black Children in White Suburban Schools 150-53 (1986) (report to the Spencer Foundation of Chicago) (Chicago: Spencer Foundation, 1986) (“Rosenbaum, Low-Income Black Children”).Google Scholar

63 See Rosenbaum & Popkin, Economic and Social Impacts 20; James E. Rosenbaum et al., “Social Integration of Low-Income Black Adults in Middle-class White Suburbs,” 39 Soc. Prob. 448, 455 (1991).Google Scholar

64 See Rosenbaum, Low-Income Black Children 150, 153.Google Scholar

65 See Julie E. Kaufman & James E. Rosenbaum, “The Education and Employment of Low-Income Black Youth in White Suburbs,” 14 Educ. Eval. & Pol'y Analysis 229, 234-37 (1992).Google Scholar

66 Id. at 237.Google Scholar

67 For a discussion of public and private barriers to geographic racial and economic integration, see Michael H. Schill & Susan M. Wachter, “Housing Market Constraints and Spatial Stratification by Income and Race,”Housing Policy Debate (forthcoming 1994). Deconcentration is also hindered by insufficient housing subsidies. At present, housing assistance in the United States is not an entitlement program. Only one-third of poor renters receive some form of housing assistance. See Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, The State of the Nation's Housing 1992 at 17 (Cambridge, Mass.: Joint Center, 1992). Even if barriers to low-cost housing were lifted, it is unlikely that unassisted households would be able to afford the housing without some form of rent subsidy.Google Scholar

68 See Michael N. Danielson, The Politics of Exclusion (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976).Google Scholar

69 See Advisory Commission on Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing, “Not in My Back Yard”: Removing Barriers to Affordable Housing 2-1 to 2-12 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1992).Google Scholar

70 See Hamilton, Bruce W., “Zoning and Property Taxation in a System of Local Governments,” 12 Urb. Stud. 205 (1975).CrossRef Google Scholar

71 See, e.g., Southern Burlington County NAACP v. Township of Mount Laurel, 456 A.2d 390, 442 (1983) (“Municipalities … may continue to zone with some regard to their fiscal obligations”).Google Scholar

72 See Village of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp. 429 U.S. 252 (1977).Google Scholar

73 844 F.2d 926 (2d Cir.), aff'd, 488 U.S. 15 (1988).Google Scholar

74 In upholding the Second Circuit in Huntington, the Court explicitly refrained from ruling on whether the Fair Housing Act permits challenges based on an “effects” test. See Huntington, 488 U.S. at 15. The defendants in the case had not raised this issue on appeal. See also infra note 77.Google Scholar

75 See, e.g., Huntington Branch, NAACP v. Town of Huntington, 844 F.2d 926, 939 (2d Cir.), aff'd 488 U.S. 15 (1988); United States v. City of Black Jack, 508 F.2d 1179, 1184 (8th Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 422 U.S. 1042 (1975).Google Scholar

76 See Huntington, 844 F.2d at 939.Google Scholar

77 In Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, 490 U.S. 642 (1989), the court held that once a plaintiff proves prima facie that an employment practice has a discriminatory effect on a protected group, the burden of production, not the burden of proof, shifts to the defendant to provide nondiscriminatory rationales. Congress has overturned this holding in the context of employment discrimination cases. See Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub. L. No. 102-166, 105 Stat. 1071, 1074 (1991). Nevertheless, it is unclear whether the Court would apply a similar analysis to the Fair Housing Act. But cf. Village of Bellwood v. Dwivedi, 895 F.2d 1521, 1533 (7th Cir. 1990) (implying that Wards Cove may have altered the disparate impact test under the Fair Housing Act).Google Scholar

78 Some states have enacted statutes to convince municipalities to alter their zoning codes to permit low-cost housing. See, e.g., Cal. Gov't Code § 65583 (West 1983 & Supp. 1993) (requiring municipalities to plan for low-cost housing); Mass. Ann. Laws ch. 40B, §§ 20-23 (Law. Co-op 1983 & Supp. 1993) (establishing a commission to override local zoning decisions in certain limited instances). Although no systematic analyses of the effects of these statutes have been completed, their impact seems to have been quite limited.Google Scholar

79 336 A.2d 713 (N.J.), appeal dismissed and cert. denied, 423 U.S. 808 (1975).Google Scholar

80 336 A.2d at 724. Mount laurel was the first and thus far only exclusionary zoning case to explicitly adopt the spatial mismatch hypothesis and embrace the principle of deconcentration. Id. Google Scholar

81 Southern Burlington County NAACP v. Township of Mount Laurel, 456 A.2d 390 (N.J. 1983).Google Scholar

82 The court exempted from its ruling areas of the state that were not designated as “growth areas” on the State Development Guidance Plan. 456 A.2d at 429-35.Google Scholar

83 456 A.2d at 442-50.Google Scholar

84 456 A.2d at 452. Importantly, developers entitled to a builder's remedy would be permitted to build both the affordable and market-rate units. The court suggested that a substantial number of affordable units would be 20%. Id. at 452 n.37.Google Scholar

85 N.J. Stat. Ann. §§ 52:27D-301 to 329 (West 1986 & Supp. 1992).Google Scholar

86 Id.§ 52:27D-314.Google Scholar

87 Id.§ 52:27D-311 et seq. Google Scholar

88 As of August 1992, 127 municipalities had either successfully obtained COAH substantive certification or were en route to obtaining certification. See Robert W. Burchell, Steven Dinero, & Sean Thompson, “COAH-produced or COAH/Courts Influenced Affordable Housing Zoning, Construction, and Rehabilitation 1987-1992” (August 1992) (New Brunswick, N.J.: Center for Urban Policy Research, 1993).Google Scholar

89 See Ebb Fitzpatrick, The Math of Mt. Laurel: A Description of Low and Moderate Income Housing created under New Jersey's Mt. Laurel Doctrine and the Fair Housing Act of 1985 (Trenton: New Jersey Dep't of Community Affairs, 1993) (survey estimates that 13,592 housing units have been built as a result of Mount Laurel).Google Scholar

90 See Martha Lamarr et al., “Mount Laurel at Work: Affordable Housing in New Jersey, 1983-1988,” 41 Rutgers L. Rev. 1197, 1214-15 (1989) (survey of 54 municipalities shows 2,830 units of housing have been completed, but most units are not affordable to low-income families).Google Scholar

91 In 1993, the New Jersey Supreme Court overturned a COAH regulation that permitted municipalities to reserve half of their Mount Laurel housing units for households who lived or worked in the localities. See In re Petition for Substantive Certification Filed by the Township of Warren, 622 A.2d 1257 (1993).Google Scholar

92 See New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing, “Status of Municipalities: August 1993” (Trenton: New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing, 1993) (as of July 1993, COAH had approved 35 Regional Contribution Agreements for 3,767 units of housing).Google Scholar

93 “Tipping” occurs when the proportion of nonwhite people in a given area rises to a level that causes white households to leave or refrain from moving into the community. Increasing levels of nonwhite inmigration and white outmigration cause widespread neighborhood transition.Google Scholar

94 In several states, courts have acted to force legislatures to equalize the resources available to local school districts. See, e.g., Abbott v, Burke, 575 A.2d 359 (N.J. 1990); Edgewocd Indep. School Dist. v. Kirby, 777 S.W.2d 391 (Tex. 1989). These cases and the legislative responses they have engendered have lessened the reliance of municipalities on their indigenous tax bases and may make them less hostile to low-cost housing developments within their borders. See Schill, 67 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. at 847-52 (cited in note 6).Google Scholar

95 Several municipalities have enacted marketing programs that seek to increase demand in certain neighborhoods among particular racial and ethnic groups in order to achieve or maintain integration. See, e.g., South Suburban Hous. Center v. Greater South Suburban Bd. of Realtors, 935 F.2d 868 (7th Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 112 S. Ct. 971 (1992) (upholding affirmative marketing plan). Anti-blockbusting ordinances limit brokers' ability to solicit individual homeowners and sometimes restrict owners' right to place “for sale” signs on their property. Anti-blockbusting ordinances have met with mixed success in the face of First Amendment challenges. See, e.g., Linmark Assoc. v. Township of Willingboro, 431 U.S. 85, 96 (1977) (ban on “for sale” signs violated free speech rights of residents); South Suburban Bd. of Realtors, 935 F.2d at 896-99 (limitation on size and number of “for sale” signs is permissible under First Amendment). Illinois has recently enacted a home equity insurance program. Property owners living in participating neighborhoods upon obtaining an appraisal for their property and paying a modest fee are entitled to the difference between the sales price they receive for their homes and the value indicated on the appraisal. See Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. ch. 65, §§ 95-1 to 95-22 (1993). Some developers have also set quotas for individual racial and ethnic groups to maintain integration. These quotas are most likely a violation of the Fair Housing Act. See United States v. Starrett City Assoc., 840 F.2d 1096 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 946 (1988) (invalidating quota designating fixed proportions of racial minorities for apartment complex).Google Scholar

96 See Schill, 60 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 526-40 (cited in note 47).Google Scholar

97 See Bernard J. Frieden, “Housing Allowances: An Experiment That Worked,” in J. Paul Mitchell, ed., Federal Housing Policy and Programs: Past and Present 365, 375 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Center for Urban Policy Research, 1985) (minority of households did not move in the Experimental Housing Allowance Program); Mireille L. Leger & Stephen D. Kennedy, Recipient Housing in the Housing Voucher and Certificate Programs 3 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1990) (two-thirds of households in the voucher demonstration moved).Google Scholar

98 Id. at 5. Minority recipients of housing vouchers and certificates have experienced difficulty in locating standard quality housing in some urban areas such as New York City. Nevertheless, a recent article concludes that when participants in the voucher demonstration program from New York City were eliminated from the 17-city sample, minority success rates were nearly equal to those of whites. See Meryl Finkel & Stephen D. Kennedy, “Racial/Ethnic Differences in Utilization of Section 8 Existing Rental Vouchers and Certificates,” 3 Housing Pol'y Debate 463, 480 (1992).CrossRef Google Scholar

99 See Mary Davis, “The Gautreaux Assisted Housing Program,”in G. Thomas Kingsley & Margery Austin Turner, eds., Housing Markets and Residential Mobility 243 (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1993) (describing activities of Chicago's Metropolitan Leadership Council for Open Communities).Google Scholar

100 Indeed, one of the authors of American Apartheid estimates that the presence of a public housing development in a Chicago census tract increases the poverty rate by 11 percentage points. See Massey, Douglas S. & Kanaiaupuni, Shawn M., “Public Housing and the Concentration of Poverty,” 73 Soc. Sci. Q. 109, 114–15 (1993). Schill and Wachter find similar empirical results in Philadelphia. See Schill & Wachter, “Spatial Bias” (cited in note 47).Google Scholar

101 42 U.S.C. § 1437d (1988 & Supp. IV). For a discussion of how congressional admissions criteria have affected concentrations of poverty within public housing, see Schill, 60 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 511-13 (cited in note 47).Google Scholar

102 See Yves S. Djoko & Wayne Sherwood, Public Housing Demographics 1992 at 24 (Report No. 9203 of the CLPHA/NAHRO/PHADA Public Housing Research Project, Oct. 1992) (Washington, D.C.: National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, 1992); U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development, Characteristics of HUD-assisted Renters and Their Units in 1989 at 68 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1992) (“HUD, Characteristics of HUD-assisted Renters”).Google Scholar

103 See id. at 68. Two-thirds of all nonelderly households living in public housing are composed of a female adult and children. See Lawrence J. Vale, “Occcupancy Issues in Distressed Public Housing: An Outline of Impacts on Design, Management and Service Delivery” in Compilation of Unedited Technical Working Drafts Prepared for the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing as of June 1, 1992 at 13 (Washington, D.C.: National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing, 1992) (“Vale, ‘Occupancy Issues’”).Google Scholar

104 See U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development, Literacy and Education Needs in Public and Indian Housing Developments throughout the Nation 5 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1992).Google Scholar

105 See HUD, Characteristics of HUD-assisted Renters 68.Google Scholar

106 See Vale, “Occupancy Issues” at 12.Google Scholar

107 See id. at 17.Google Scholar

108 See Ronald Jones, David Kaminsky, & Michael Roanhouse, Problems Affecting Low-Rent Public Housing Projects 2-3 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1979) (700 public housing projects, containing 15% of the nation's public housing, can be characterized as “troubled”); National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing, The Final Report 2 (Washington, D.C.: National Commission, 1992) (6% of public housing stock is severely distressed).Google Scholar

109 See id. at 7, 18.Google Scholar

110 See Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, Pub. L. No. 102-550 §§ 111, 120, 106 Stat. 3672 (1992). The Major Reconstruction of Obsolete Projects (MROP) program permits HUD to fund renovations that exceed the cost of new construction. Id. Google Scholar

111 See Schill, 60 U. Chi. L. Rev. at 540-43 (cited in note 47).Google Scholar

112 See 42 U.S.C. § 1437p(b)(3) (1988 & Supp. IV).Google Scholar

113 Demolished public housing units may be replaced by demand-oriented housing assistance only if the HUD Secretary certifies that replacement with supply-oriented assistance is not feasible and that the supply of housing in the area will remain sufficient for certificate holders throughout the period in which they receive assistance. If 200 or more units are demolished, no more than half of the replacement units may be provided by demand-oriented assistance. Under no circumstances may housing vouchers be used as replacement housing. Id. Google Scholar

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