Why Place Really Matters: A Qualitative Approach to Housing Preferences and Neighborhood Effects

Abstract

The idea that a person’s neighborhood or zip code can predict his or her life outcomes has motivated a host of housing policies aimed at redressing racial segregation and breaking up areas of concentrated poverty. This article critically examines underlying assumptions about high-poverty neighborhoods that motivate those policies. Using ethnographic methods, I present the location preferences of residents living in a low-income neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, and show the ways in which their perceptions of their neighborhood run counter to common portrayals. This analysis provides clues as to why the underlying logic of dispersal and mobility may be flawed. I conclude that place matters very much to people living in this neighborhood, just not in the way commonly implied by dispersal and mobility policy advocates. The implication is that stability, rather than mobility, ought to be the focus of more housing discussions.

Keywords:

• U.S. housing policy
• Housing Choice Vouchers
• mobility
• neighborhood effects
• qualitative methods
• Columbus
• Ohio

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge the host of mentors that guided this research and writing across two universities, in particular Rachel Garshick Kleit, Bernadette Hanlon, Ola Ahlqvist, and Kendra McSweeney of The Ohio State University, as well as Carolina Reid and Charisma Acey of the University of California, Berkeley. In addition, this article would not have been possible without the support of the staff and leadership of St. Stephen’s Community House. Finally, the author would like to thank the article’s three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.