Research by Author & Topic

Publications by Margery Austin Turner on Housing Markets and Choice

Despite substantial progress since passage of the Fair Housing Act four decades ago, neighborhoods remain highly segregated by race and ethnicity. This paper summarizes existing research evidence on both the costs of segregation and the potential benefits of neighborhood diversity. It uses decennial census data to show that a growing share of US neighborhoods are racially and ethnically diverse, but that low-income African Americans in particular remain highly concentrated in predominantly minority neighborhoods. Because the dynamics that sustain segregation today are complex, strategies for overcoming them must address not only discrimination, but information gaps, affordability constraints, prejudice, and fear.

Every parent recognizes the inextricable connections between where we live and the quality of our children’s education. Although public policies have historically contributed to disparities in both neighborhood affordability and school quality, federal programs focused on affordable housing rarely take public schools into account and school officials typically assume that they have no influence over housing patterns. This paper focuses on four principles regarding the vitality and performance of schools and communities, discussing opportunities for constructive policy interventions, summarizing what we know about their likely effectiveness, and recommending next steps for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Education.

Historically, residential segregation constrained where minorities could live, contributing to disparities in education, employment, and wealth. Researchers interested in the well-being and future prospects of low-income working families have not yet explored how their residential patterns may vary across racial and ethnic lines or considered the implications of these patterns. Therefore, this paper explores differences in neighborhood characteristics among white, black, and Hispanic low-income working families. The findings suggest that policies aimed at reducing the persistent disadvantages facing minority low-income working families need to address the ways the neighborhoods in which minorities live may be compounding these disadvantages.

Over the last decade, the District of Columbia implemented bold steps to improve its public schools while also experiencing population growth, property value increases, and strong city fiscal health. But its child population (0-17 years old) remained essentially the same and a dwindling share of the city's children was attending the public schools. This policy report summarizes analysis from the Quality Schools and Healthy Neighborhoods: Research Report that describes the relationships between education, housing, and neighborhood development in the District, as well as provides policy recommendations for how to make the District of Columbia a more family-friendly city.

Over the last decade, the District of Columbia implemented bold steps to improve its public schools while also experiencing population growth, property value increases, and strong city fiscal health. But its child population (0-17 years old) remained essentially the same and a dwindling share of the city’s children was attending the public schools. This research report describes in-depth the relationships between education, housing, and neighborhood development in the District of Columbia, and it is the basis for the subsequent policy research report, Quality Schools, Healthy Neighborhoods, and the Future of DC, which outlines recommended policies to make the District a more family-friendly city.

The Census Bureau released its annual report on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage for the U.S. population on August 26, 2008. According to the report, median household income increased by 1.3 percent in 2007, while the overall poverty rate dipped slightly and the number and percentage of people without health insurance decreased. While the overall numbers were positive, not everyone shared in the economic gains. The number and percentage of children in poverty increased, and households in the lowest 40 percent of the income distribution had no significant income gains.

U.S. public policy has increasingly been conceived, debated, and evaluated through the lenses of politics and ideology. The fundamental question--Will the policy work?--too often gets short shrift or even ignored. A remedy is evidence-based policy -- a rigorous approach that draws on careful data collection, experimentation, and both quantitative and qualitative analysis to determine what the problem is, which ways it can be addressed, and the probable impacts of each of these ways. Examples of how evidence informs good policy and lack of evidence can invite bad include health insurance coverage, welfare reform, sentencing policy, and redress for housing discrimination.

Is there a correlation between exposure to racially integrated, low poverty areas and employment outcomes? Does moving from a poor, inner city neighborhood to a less poor area bring greater proximity to job opportunities, or contacts with new networks of neighbors who might steer movers to jobs? Does living in a community where more people work increase motivation to work or to increase income? In examining these questions for the MTO experimental movers, this brief finds that factors in addition to where people live affect their employment and earnings.

The federal Moving to Opportunity program (MTO) was designed to help poor minority families move from distressed, high poverty neighborhoods to better locations, thereby improving their quality of life and long term chances for well-being. Low income families living in concentrated poverty face a variety of challenges to their safety, health, and economic health, including poor schools, high crime and unemployment. This brief examines areas where the MTO program helped movers with those challenges, areas still problematic even after moving, and factors affecting those outcomes and considers policy implications for the next generation of assisted housing mobility initiatives.

This is the sixth in a series of annual reports about housing in the Washington metropolitan region. It assembles and analyzes the most current data on housing conditions and trends in the District of Columbia and the surrounding suburbs. Last year's report focused on linkages between housing and schools in the District of Columbia and the metropolitan region. This year's report takes a regional perspective, examining how the region addresses housing for special needs populations. More specifically, the report assesses the housing options and services available to the elderly, disabled, and homeless and explores the consequences and opportunities for housing policy across the region.