Analyzing investment flows in comprehensive community revitalization: The case of Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco

ABSTRACT

Despite the rise of comprehensive community initiatives, little research evaluates the specific type and extent of neighborhood investment generated by government spending. This study uses the case of housing revitalization in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood to determine the feasibility of analyzing public, private, and nonprofit investment flows related to the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative and HOPE SF. Through analyses of both secondary and primary data, this article finds that not only is identifying all of the different investments challenging but that multiple factors complicate analysis, including the timing of the business cycle, city budget cutbacks, market pressures from surrounding neighborhoods, and real estate speculation. Furthermore, neighborhood residents are perceiving little change—or at least few benefits for themselves—in the area. This suggests the need for different tools, such as value capture strategies and community benefits agreements, to better serve the needs of existing residents of low-income communities.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to India Alarcon, Stefani Cox, Heather Imboden, Yelda Kizildag, Arijit Sen, and Miriam Zuk for excellent research and mapping assistance. The authors also thank Paul Joice and Brett Theodos for thoughtful comments.

Notes

1. Theodos et al. (2013) provide a more detailed review of the existing research on the impacts of federal investments in neighborhood revitalization, including the Community Development Block Grant Program, low-income housing tax credits, empowerment zones, and new markets tax credits.

2. Authorized by the federal government in 1992, the Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE VI) program was established to assist local housing authorities in redeveloping severely distressed public housing projects. At the time of its establishment, HOPE VI was considered to be a dramatic shift from the way in which public housing had been approached in the past: severely distressed public housing projects, solely occupied by low-income families, were to be replaced with redesigned mixed-income housing.

3. This includes Foundation Center, Guidestar, federal 990 tax forms, and annual reports.

4. Researchers constructing multivariate models from this type of data will need to use yearly averages to control for these different lengths.

5. Almost one sixth of these housing investments were associated with the development of 5800 Third, a 239-unit condominium development partially underway with an anchor retail space for a neighborhood grocery store. Note that this figure does not include state and federal funding sources for the subsidized units and thus is likely a significant undercount.

6. These expenditures are included in the residential new construction permit costs and are not counted separately here to avoid double-counting.

7. We did not convert public and nonprofit investments to real dollars because many occurred over multiyear periods; for instance, if funds for a new park were spent from 2006 to 2008, it is unclear how to inflation adjust.

8. Because nonprofits with revenues of less than $25,000 are not required to file, this decrease could reflect the omission of small nonprofits.

9. Names and organizational affiliations of all research participants were withheld for confidentiality.

10. Corner store conversions involve retrofitting liquor and convenience stores to include space for fresh produce, prepared salads, and other healthy food items.

11. As Theodos et al. (2013) note, these costs are often underestimated by the applicant (in order to avoid higher fees and/or property taxes).

12. This includes Bayview Hunters Point, McLaren Park, and parts of Portola, Portero Hill, and Visitacion Valley.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (H-21647RG).

Notes on contributors

Karen Chapple

Karen Chapple is Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, where she holds the Carmel P. Friesen Chair in Urban Studies. Her research focuses on the governance, planning, and development of regions in the United States and Latin America, with a focus on housing, economic development, and urban data analytics. Her recent book (Routledge, 2015) is entitled Planning Sustainable Cities and Regions: Towards More Equitable Development.

Renee Roy Elias

Renee Roy Elias is Manager of Strategic Programs and Research at the Build Healthy Places Network. Renee received her PhD in city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley. She also holds a bachelor of architecture and master of urban design, both from Carnegie Mellon University, and a master of science in human geography from the University of Oxford.