Alvin H. Mushkatel

Does Locational Choice Matter?: A Comparison of Different Subsidized Housing Programs in Phoenix, Arizona

The authors examine the locational patterns of three subsidized housing programs—conventional project-based, section 8 assisted rental, and shelter plus care supported housing for the severely mentally ill and homeless—in Phoenix, Arizona. They demonstrate that these programs are reinforcing the existing concentrations of the three types of subsidized housing in some Phoenix neighborhoods. The findings for Phoenix suggest that voucher and certificate policies designed to deconcentrate the poor are not achieving some of their major objectives. Indeed, the policies pursued by different providers of subsidized housing may cumulatively lead to increasing concentrations of all such housing in tracts that are already compromised by concentrations of the urban poor.

Race, Ethnicity, and Household Characteristics of Section 8 Housing Clients and their Impact on Adjacent Housing Quality

The authors examine how assisted housing units with householders belonging to different racial/ethnic groups receiving Section 8 vouchers and certificates effect change in housing quality of adjacent structures. Rather than relying on traditional measures of housing value as surrogates of quality, an aggregate index of housing quality was obtained from data available in two Housing Condition Evaluation surveys conducted by the city of Phoenix in 1980 and 1994. The quality change in these units was modeled using logistic regressions with the help of neighborhood demographic and housing parameters and fixed effects. The results suggest small but significant negative impacts on housing quality within a range of 0.5 miles of assisted housing units but positive impacts if the household is female headed, all else held constant.

Effect of Objective Risk on Key Actor Support for Seismic Mitigation Policy

This article investigates the policy formulation process related to seismic hazard mitigation. A preemergent policy climate is identified by focusing on key actors, assessments of seismic risk, and policy alternatives. Two major factors were found to affect key actor support for policy development: (a) the objective risk to which their constituent community is exposed, and (b) their elective or appointive position at the local level of government.

The Developer's Role in Coprovision, Cofinancing, and Coproduction of Urban Infrastructure and Services

Municipalities are increasingly shifting costs for urban infrastructure and services to private developers through the use of exactions. A complex system of conjoint arrangements has resulted in which a firm, in bargaining over the conditions of a development permit, may agree to provide and operate a water system, where the use of a facility with a city, or participate in a joint commercial venture with a local government. This exaction process has placed many developers in relationships that are analogous to those of citizen coproviders, cofinancers, and coproducers of public goods and services. In addition to public benefits, a number of potential social costs can be identified with these developer-based relations and suggest that there may be analogous costs involving citizen-governmental conjoint activities. These include equity issues concerning who benefits from developer provided infrastructure and services, whether extensive reliance on cost shifts to developers and on revenue generated from joint commercial ventures can compromise the public interest, and whether implicit demands by cities for exactions is reducing truly voluntary contri butions of a public nature by developers.

Housing Quality and Neighborhood Redevelopment: A Study of Neighborhood Initiatives in Phoenix, Arizona

Abstract The last few years have witnessed efforts to eliminate the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program in Congress. Critics of the CDBG program have pointed to the dearth of studies documenting successful impacts in affected neighborhoods. This article examines the impact of the use of CDBG monies in Phoenix, Arizona. Using housing condition surveys from 1994 and 2004, six Neighborhood Initiative Areas (NIAs) are examined to determine the effect that CDBG targeted funds had on housing quality in these areas between 1994 and 2004. The study documents dramatic improvement in housing conditions in these targeted areas as a result, in part, of the CDBG funding.

Privatism in Local Land Use Development: the Use of Exactions, Impact Fees and Impact Taxes by Municipalities

A decade ago Bosselman and Callies heralded the onset of a so-called ‘Quiet Revolution in Land-Use Control’ (1971). They referred to the increasingly active role that state governments were assuming in regulating the use of land which had traditionally been a local function (Mushkatel and Mushkatel, 1979). Currently, another quiet revolution in local land use planning and development is taking place. A variety of forces, some political and some economic, have resulted in recent, important changes in the way local governments manage development and land use. In extreme cases, local officials and developers are coming to be joint partners as more and more of the up-front costs of infrastructure and services are shifted to developers.