Comment on Roberto G. Quercia and George C. Galster's “The challenges facing public housing authorities in a brave new world”

Abstract

Quercia and Galster argue that efforts to reform public housing will likely fail because they are hampered by conflicting and competing goals, or what they call a “constrained quadrilemma.” We do not take issue with much of what Quercia and Galster find. Rather we recast the interpretation of their findings. Quercia and Galster argue that public housing is being asked to undergo reform and in the process reconcile a series of social agendas that will lead to the general improvement of society.

Yet from its inception, public housing has pursued too ambitious a program, with conflicting goals as Quercia and Galster describe. Quercia and Galster see the quadrilemma as leading to dysfunction. By contrast, we see the Quercia‐Galster model for public housing authorities as less a constrained quadrilemma than a decision‐making matrix that shows the trade‐offs authorities must consider when reforming public housing.

Keywords:

• Low‐income housing
• Policy
• Markets