Neighborhood characteristics and the location of HUD-subsidized housing in shrinking cities: an analysis to inform anchor-based urban revitalization strategies

Abstract

This article focuses on the manner in which affordable housing fits into anchor-based strategies for urban revitalization. It involves quantitative analysis of the location of existing HUD-subsidized housing in relation to neighborhood characteristics. The goal of the article is twofold. First, we examine the degree to which neighborhood characteristics associated with neighborhoods of opportunity correlate with the location of HUD-subsidized housing in shrinking cities. Second, we make recommendations for more equitable approaches to anchor-based urban revitalization. Our analysis uses a unique database developed to measure neighborhood characteristics in shrinking US cities. Our findings suggest that the location of affordable housing is not correlated with proximity to institutional and neighborhood amenities, where anchor-based revitalization is targeted. As a result, we make recommendations to link future affordable housing siting to anchor-based strategies for inner-city revitalization.

Keywords:

• urban planning
• urban development
• community organizing
• grass-roots development
• public policy

Acknowledgment

The work that provided the basis for this publication was supported by funding under a grant with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. The substance and findings of the work are dedicated to the public. The author(s) and publisher are solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and interpretations contained in this publication. Such interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agency.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The term shrinking cities describes the process of long-term population decline, property abandonment, fiscal stress, and the deterioration of infrastructure in large industrial cities during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (Großmann, Beauregard, Dewar, & Haase, 2012; Haase, Rink, Grossmann, Bernt, & Mykhnenko, 2014; Pallagst, 2008; Silverman, Yin, & Patterson, 2013; Silverman, Yin, & Patterson, 2015). This concept has been used to describe the dilemma that declining cities face across the globe, particularly in older industrial centers in Europe and the USA.

2. The 19 variables subjected to principal component factor analysis were: average household size, percent black, percent of the population 25 and over, with less than a high school education, percent of the civilian population 16 and over, who were unemployed, percent of workers 16 and over, who took public transit to work, the natural log of median household income ($), median gross rent as a percent of household income, median monthly owner cost as a percent of household income, percent of the population below poverty, percent of households with social security income, percent of households with supplemental security income (SSI), percent of households with public assistance or food stamp/SNAP income, GINI index, median year housing built, percent single-family homes, the natural log of median housing value ($), percent renter occupied, percent vacant, and percent vacant “other.”

3. The total number of housing units subsidized by HUD included the sum of all public housing units, housing choice voucher (HCV) units, moderate rehabilitation units, section 8 new construction and substantial rehabilitation units, section 236 units, and units classified as multifamily other. The source of this data was the 2012 HUD Picture of Subsidized Housing database.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) [H21662CA].