Edward G. Goetz

Media and Agenda Setting: Effects on the Public, Interest Group Leaders, Policy Makers, and Policy

Using an experimental design built around a single media event, the authors explored the impact of the media upon the general public, policy makers, interest group leaders, and public policy. The results suggested that the media influenced views about issue importance among the general public and government policy makers. The study suggests, however, that it was not this change in public opinion which led to subsequent policy changes. Instead, policy change resulted from collaboration between journalists and government staff members.

Forced Relocation vs. Voluntary Mobility: The Effects of Dispersal Programmes on Households

The deconcentration of poverty in the US has involved both voluntary mobility programmes for low-income households and involuntary relocation of families through government action. This paper examines the effects on families of these two different strategies. Using data on over 600 families in the Twin Cities region of Minneapolis/Saint Paul, the study reveals only sporadic support for the hypothesis that voluntary or involuntary participants in the deconcentration effort will report improvements in their living conditions, or report better conditions than a control group of public housing and Section 8 residents. Several possible explanations for the lack of programme effects are offered.

The Politics of Poverty Deconcentration and Housing Demolition

Concentrated poverty is the organizing framework for much housing policy at the federal and local levels. This article examines the effect of concentrated poverty on the politics of housing and community development at the local level. A case study of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area suggests that in high-poverty neighborhoods efforts to deconcentrate lead to political battles reminiscent of the urban renewal era in which poor and minority residents fight to save their housing and communities from slum clearance. For central cities, the deconcentration of poverty as a policy objective introduces a new set of criteria against which community development efforts are judged, making the development of subsidized and affordable housing more difficult to initiate or sustain. At the regional level, concerns about the concentration of poverty can create new alliances of resistance to affordable housing and even justify demolition in older, inner-ring suburbs.

You gotta move: advancing the debate on the record of dispersal

This paper summarizes the social science research on the record of housing dispersal programs since 1995. The research shows a consistently disappointing record of benefits to low-income households. Households moved out of high-poverty neighborhoods, voluntarily and involuntarily, show few or no beneficial effects in terms of economic self-sufficiency, health benefits, or social integration. The benefits of dispersal are confined to feelings of greater safety and satisfaction with neighborhood environmental conditions. We offer a framework for understanding the disappointing record of dispersal, highlighting its translation from social science diagnosis to policy, problems in the policys implementation, its underlying theory of poverty, and the political context within which dispersal has been applied.

Gentrification in black and white: the racial impact of public housing demolition in American cities.

The gentrification that has transformed high-poverty neighbourhoods in US cities since the mid 1990s has been characterised by high levels of state reinvestment. Prominent among public-sector interventions has been the demolition of public housing and in some cases multimillion dollar redevelopment efforts. In this paper, the racial dimension of state-supported gentrification in large US cities is examined by looking at the direct and indirect displacement induced by public housing transformation. The data show a clear tendency towards the demolition of public housing projects with disproportionately high African American occupancy. The pattern of indirect displacement is more varied; public housing transformation has produced a number of paths of neighbourhood change. The most common, however, involve significant reductions in poverty, sometimes associated with Black to White racial turnover and sometimes not. The findings underscore the central importance of race in understanding the dynamics of gentrification in US cities.

Housing Dispersal Programs

Current federal housing policy and the planning approaches of many local governments focus on the dispersal of subsidized families. There have been, in fact, two generations of dispersal policy. The first, occurring in the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, was part of the fair housing movement that was aimed at addressing issues of racial discrimination and suburban exclusionism in housing, and the second, dating from the early 1990s, is focused on deconcentrating poverty in American cities. Both generations of dispersal efforts, regardless of their differing justifications, use roughly the same policy strategies. This article reviews the policy history of housing dispersal and offers a schematic interpretation of different programmatic approaches.

Expanding Possibilities in Local Development Policy: An Examination of U.S. Cities

Some local governments in the U.S. have expanded their economic development policy from the incentives and subsidies that have characterized the arena for 30 years to policy that is increasingly concerned with equity, the control and regulation of private development, and the direction of tangible growth-related benefits to low-income groups. This new development policy orientation provides an opportunity to test the explanatory power of competing models of local politics. Using cross-sectional data on a large sample of U.S. cities, I argue that the role of political actors and local political conditions are extremely important in explaining the variation in development policy across cities.

Type II Policy and Mandated Benefits in Economic Development

Economic development policy in the United States is dominated by public subsidy and incentive programs designed to induce private sector investment. The market-generated benefits of increased private investment are assumed to justify the public expense of such programs. The author argues that a second type of development policy exists, called Type llpolicy, that is based on a conflicting set of assumptions and that mandates public benefits by requiring private developers to provide direct economic and social goods. An analysis of policy in 281 localities shows that Type II programs are widespread, are strongly associated with higher levels of community-based activity in the economic development arena, and are not restricted to prosperous locations.

The new localism : comparative urban politics in a global era

Introduction - Susan E Clarke The State Reassessed - Richard C Hula The Privatization of Local Politics Local Authorities and Economic Development in Britain - James Chandler Birmingham - Brian Jacobs Political Restructuring, Economic Change and the Civic Gospel Local Government in Poland - Wisla Surazska Political Failure and Economic Success Market as Pressure or Market as Possibility - Gabor Peteri The Framework of Local Economic Development in Hungary Regimes of Accumulation, the Caribbean Basin Initiative, and Export Processing Zones - Thomas Klak and Jamie Rulli Scales of Influence on Caribbean Development Local Institutions and Development - Dele Olowu The Nigerian Experience Political Restructuring and the Development Process in Kenya - Peter M Ngau Conclusion - Edward Goetz

Desegregation in 3D: Displacement, Dispersal and Development in American Public Housing

Housing policy in the United States now serves an agenda defined by concerns over economic and racial segregation in older central city neighborhoods. HOPE VI, the main US initiative in this area, is aimed at the large-scale demolition of public housing projects and their replacement by smaller-scale, mixed-income developments. The logic model behind the effort to redevelop public housing and disperse subsidized housing residents anticipates benefits at both the individual and community level. Individuals are expected to progress in a range of economic, social and physical ways when freed of the negative area effects associated with high levels of income and racial segregation. Communities are expected to become more livable when rid of dysfunctional and outmoded public housing estates and their discouraging influence on private investment patterns. This paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of this model, assessing, in the process, the potential for achieving the policy goals set out by those advocating dispersal.