Building Successful Neighborhoods

Reviews the literature on direct interventions to revitalize distressed neighborhoods by improving housing, schools, and services in terms of basic policy and strategy, programmatic strategies, and building institutional infrastructure

Building Environmentally Sustainable Communities: A Framework for Inclusivity

Reviews literature on past inequitable and unsustainable urban development and visions for linking sustainability, opportunity, and inclusion. Analyzes possible metrics for measuring sustainability and access as well as next steps for policy

Planning the Housing Opportunity and Services Together Demonstration: Challenges and Lessons Learned

Offers insights from designing and implementing a project to address barriers to self-sufficiency among low-income parents, such as poor health and low education levels, while integrating services for children and youth in public and mixed-income housing

Public Housing Transformation and Crime: Making the Case for Responsible Relocation

The research in this article examines the effect on crime rates of public housing transformation in Atlanta and Chicago, focusing on the neighborhoods receiving households relocated with housing vouchers. Modeling the complex relationship between voucher holder locations and crime, using quarterly data, our analysis found that crime rates fell substantially in neighborhoods with public housing demolition, whereas destination neighborhoods experienced a much lesser effect than popular accounts imply. Nevertheless, on average, negative effects emerge for some neighborhoods with modest or high densities of relocated households compared with conditions in areas without relocated households. Overall, we estimate small net decreases citywide in violent crime over study periods during which crime declined significantly. These findings suggest a need for thoughtful relocation strategies that support both assisted residents and receiving communities