Lawrence J. Vale

The politics of resilient cities: whose resilience and whose city?

It is vital to acknowledge the socio-political complexity of the deployment of the term ‘resilience’ and to develop a more unified set of expectations for the professions and disciplines that use it. Applied to cities, resilience is particularly problematic, yet also retains promise. Like resilience, the term ‘city’ is also subject to multiple contending definitions, depending on the scale and on whether the focus is on physical spaces or social communities. Due to cities and city-regions being organized in ways that both produce and reflect underlying socio-economic disparities, some parts are much more resilient than others and therefore vulnerability is often linked to both topography and income. Uneven resilience threatens the ability of cities as a whole to function economically, socially and politically. Resilience can only remain useful as a concept and as progressive practice if it is explicitly associated with the need to improve the life prospects of disadvantaged groups. This dimension is often lost in definitions of resilience drawn from engineering and ecology, but remains central to conceptualizations linked to social psychology. To improve the prospects of cities proactively (and reactively), there is a need to unify the insights from the multiple professions and disciplines that use ‘resilience’.

Empathological Places: Residents' Ambivalence toward Remaining in Public Housing

It is often assumed that most residents of large public housing projects in Americas inner cities would welcome the opportunity to leave such places. This study, based on indepth interviews with 267 residents of five public housing developments in Boston, examines the reasons why two-thirds of these respondents say they would like to stay put, and also discusses the factors that make the other one-third eager to depart. The article concludes by attempting to reconcile these findings with a central dilemma facing urban planners and housing policymakers: how to sustain stable communities in public housing while also increasing the opportunities for residents to move to less impoverished neighborhoods.

Beyond the problem projects paradigm: Defining and revitalizing “severely distressed” public housing

Abstract This article challenges the utility of the concept of “severely distressed” public housing, arguing instead that the program has systemic problems and that the 6 percent of developments recently identified as severely distressed by the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing are merely those furthest along a continuum. Applying the commissions own criteria to nationwide program data that reveal dramatically increased resident impoverishment during the past decade, the article reveals the need for a more inclusive definition of severe distress. While acknowledging the moral and political imperative to ameliorate conditions in the worst‐off places first, the article cautions against overreliance on a problem projects paradigm that could obstruct calls for systemwide reforms. The article advocates an action‐oriented research agenda, emphasizing data collection on a variety of ill‐understood socioeconomic aspects of public housing conditions and enabling policy analysts to set clea...

Public housing redevelopment: Seven kinds of success

Abstract Three comprehensive redevelopment efforts were undertaken in Boston public housing projects during the 1980s, attempts that may well represent the clearest precedent for the current U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development initiatives under the Urban Revitalization Demonstration program. Despite receiving similar levels of funding and undergoing similar design and development processes, the results of these three redevelopment efforts vary widely: Two of them have become nationally recognized models for public housing revitalization, while the third proved disappointing to all involved. This article examines and evaluates the three efforts. It argues that redevelopment success should be measured by at least seven criteria: smooth implementation, recognized design quality, improved tenant organization capacity, enhanced maintenance and management performance, improved security, progress on socioeconomic development, and resident satisfaction. It concludes by emphasizing the potential of pa...

Comment on Mark Joseph's “Is mixed‐income development an antidote to urban poverty?”

Abstract Josephs analysis of the literature on mixed‐income developments reveals different motives and casts significant doubt on key assumptions about the presumed benefits of that approach. This literature provides more support for the ability of mixed‐income developments to enhance social control and help leverage neighborhood political and economic gains. However, some of those advantages could be achieved for low‐income households through well‐managed housing, careful tenant selection, and good design—without income mixing. Revisiting the early history of public housing suggests some parallels with HOPE VI (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) initiatives and casts doubt on the ability of policy makers to sustain socially engineered communities. The inconclusive endorsement for mixed‐income housing proffered by Josephs analysis suggests the need for further ethnographic research on these communities, including an analysis of the importance of homeownership, the pattern of engagement with public schools, and the advantages of different kinds of income mixing.

The Imaging of the City: Public Housing and Communication

Over the years, public housing has evolved into a phenomenon of a less than desirable aspect of urban existence. It is part of the urban mystique reflected in media depictions as a place of crime and discontent. This essay, written by a scholar of urban planning and design, examines public housing not simply as something reported in the news but rather as a dynamic communication environment. The role of communication in the construction of public perceptions and community identity are explored as it functions in this highly stigma-laden locale. The process of socially constructed meaning for insiders and outsiders is examined within the context of this unique and problem-ridden urban environment.

Comment on James E. Rosenbaum, Linda K. Stroh, and Cathy A. Flynn's “Lake Parc Place: A study of mixed‐income housing”

Abstract It is not clear how much of the success of the Lake Parc Place experiment is due to income mixing and how much simply to the fact that it was turned into a well‐managed development with a carefully screened group of tenants. The Rosenbaum, Stroh, and Flynn study provides little empirical evidence to support the added value of income mixing, because nearly half of the low‐income households of Lake Parc Place were employed. Instead, the Lake Parc Place story suggests that income mixing is politically and financially appealing but socially unnecessary, at least in cases where housing authorities and their partners are able to revitalize developments in ways that can attract working families with very low incomes.

All Mixed Up: Making Sense of Mixed-Income Housing Developments

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Mixed-income housing is a popular strategy used by planners, developers, and government agencies to simultaneously revitalize blighted urban neighborhoods and preserve affordable housing for low-income residents. Yet the term “mixed income” is not consistently defined, so there is no clear understanding of what mixed-income housing is, what characterizes it, and how mixed-income projects differ from one another. Planners and policymakers are making important decisions about whether and how to pursue this urban redevelopment strategy without knowing the kinds of housing mixes available. We construct a data set of all 260 HOPE VI mixed-income redevelopment projects, analyze grant announcements, and obtain internal records from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Using the data, we conduct a descriptive analysis of income mixes across projects. Based on this analysis and previous studies of income mixing, we develop a framework for categorizing key aspects of mixed-income housing. We identify four key dimensions for distinguishing current and future approaches to mixed-income housing: allocation, the proportion and range of incomes included in projects; proximity, the spatial scale at which income mixing is intended; tenure, the balance between rental housing and homeownership units; and duration, the amount of time projects remain mixed income based on funding restrictions. Planners can influence the nature of mixed-income housing projects by making choices about the range of options offered within these dimensions. We show that HOPE VI developments vary dramatically across all of them. We also highlight additional characteristics that may affect the broader community: rate of resident return, development size, building type, neighborhood characteristics, and race and ethnicity. Takeaway for practice: Planners need to understand the four dimensions to clarify the tradeoffs involved in decisions about mixed-income housing projects. Ultimately, this can help planners better design and plan projects that balance social goals and local conditions.

Hoping for more: redeveloping U.S. public housing without marginalizing low-income residents?

Abstract Urban restructuring policies have uprooted residents and dismantled communities. Previous studies focus on housing redevelopment that minimizes the fraction of housing units left for poor residents and on interviewing residents only once the redevelopment has been announced. By contrast, this paper examines how residents over time experienced the HOPE VI redevelopment of the Orchard Park public housing project in Boston, which sought to preserve a low-income community. Using official records and a unique set of interviews with residents before and after redevelopment, we find marked declines in crime and increased residential satisfaction, which are attributed to changes in tenant composition. The redevelopment process reduced the total number of public housing units yet maintained the vast majority of housing for poor families while creating a new social mix. The findings suggest that to more fully capture the impacts of restructuring, existing theory must be expanded to consider who is displaced and how poverty is deconcentrated.

The future of planned poverty: Redeveloping America's most distressed public housing projects

In the late 1990s, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development has funded a large-scale effort, known as HOPE VI, intended to redevelop dozens of the countrys most devastated public housing projects. This article surveys the socio-economic and physical decline of these projects and explores current redevelopment strategies. Drawing mostly upon two ongoing HOPE VI revitalization efforts in Boston, and comparing these to four earlier large-scale redevelopment attempts in that city, the article points to a growing desire to use public housing redevelopment as a means to build more economically diverse communities.