Comment on Elvin K. Wyly and Daniel J. Hammel's “Islands of Decay in Seas of Renewal: Housing Policy and the Resurgence of Gentrication”

Abstract

Wyly and Hammel raise a number of important issues regarding the role of low‐income housing assistance in the more recent resurgence of inner‐city capital investment. However, their methodologies are found to be limited, and their results only weakly support a number of the strong conclusions they draw. Despite these limitations, Wyly and Hammel do present some interesting findings, such as greater loan denial rates for higher‐income applicants in the inner cities than in the suburbs, and raise the possibility of a changing income mix of urban gentrifiers. Building on the article's main theme, the comment suggests strategies to improve low‐income housing policy outcomes and highlights the gentrification conundrum.

Keywords:

• Gentrification
• Housing
• Mortgages