Publications on Racial Segregation

One expected benefit of moving poor families from the concentrated poverty of some inner city neighborhoods to better, less poor neighborhoods, was that the children would attend better schools, with more resources and more advantaged peers who might be models for hard work and higher achievement. This brief looks at the schools MTO children attended after their move, how they did or did not differ from the schools in their pre-move neighborhoods, and what factors mattered to families choosing schools for their children.

The paper explores how shifts in both social welfare policies and economic conditions beginning in the mid-1990s altered the relative well-being of blacks— compared to whites—between 1997 and 2002. It uses the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) to assess how the relative well-being of black families improved or disparities persisted. The findings suggest that some of the disparities between whites and blacks narrowed between 1997 and 2002, especially among people with low incomes. But gaps in income, child school outcomes, employment, assets, and welfare and other income supports, remained essentially unchanged over the period.

The HOPE VI program targets dilapidated public housing developments that have failed to deliver on the promise of decent housing for the poor. The program goal is to improve the living environment for residents of severely distressed public housing and provide housing that will avoid or decrease the concentration of very poor families. The HOPE VI Panel Study is the only national study of outcomes for HOPE VI families and addresses basic questions about where residents move and how HOPE VI affects their overall well-being. After tracking residents through the relocation process, the Panel Study is able to effectively address the question of whether HOPE VI has succeeded in improving residents' life circumstances.

Panelists discussed academic achievement gaps and segregation, poverty and the accumulation of risk factors, and programs designed to alleviate these conditions. Listen to the podcast.

Our country’s rental housing challenges are changing in ways that not only affect an expanding segment of the population but also implicate other top domestic priorities. We face a nationwide housing affordability problem, insufficient housing supply in prosperous regions, a problem of housing location within metropolitan regions, and a neighborhood distress problem. Some states and localities are starting to respond to these challenges in new and creative ways. But without a renewed commitment from the federal government, these efforts will never be sufficient to address the breadth and depth of the affordable housing challenges we face today.