Mark L. Joseph

The Theoretical Basis for Addressing Poverty Through Mixed-Income Development

This article examines the theoretical foundations upon which the rationale for mixed-income development as a strategy to confront urban poverty is built. The authors focus on four propositions that draw from theories on social networks, social control, culture and behavior, and the political economy of place. They assess available evidence about the relative importance of the four theoretical propositions. They conclude that the most compelling propositions are those that suggest that some low-income residents may benefit from a higher quality of life through greater informal social control and access to higher quality services. They find less evidence that socioeconomic outcomes for low-income residents may be improved through social interaction, network building, and role modeling.

Is mixed‐income development an antidote to urban poverty?

Abstract I critically assess the potential for mixed‐income development as a means of helping lift families in U.S. inner cities out of poverty. I identify four main propositions for the promise of mixed‐income development, provide a conceptual framework that delineates the pathways through which mixed‐income development can be hypothesized to improve the quality of life for the urban poor, and review the evidence from existing research on the relevance of these propositions. Because of the scale and possible elimination of the HOPE VI (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) program, I pay particular attention to what we have learned from it. The most compelling propositions are those that do not rely on social interaction to promote a higher quality of life for low‐income residents and instead predict benefits through greater informal social control and higher‐quality goods and services. I consider the limitations of this strategy and policy implications for future mixed‐income development.

Building "Community" in Mixed-Income Developments: Assumptions, Approaches, and Early Experiences

As an urban-redevelopment strategy, the goals of mixed-income development are often talked about in terms of building “community”—the shaping of environments, opportunities, and social arrangements that promote healthy neighborhood life, particularly for the low-income people who live there. This article explores the strategies engaged, expectations for, and early responses to efforts to build “community” in three mixed-income developments being built on the footprint of former public housing developments in Chicago. In doing so, it investigates the expectations among residents and stakeholders, distills and explores three major strategic orientations being engaged by developers and their partners, and examines how these strategies in particular—and the building of community more generally—is playing out across sites, including the dynamics and conditioning factors that promote or inhibit participation, engagement, interaction, and the shaping of social cohesion and social control.

Living in a Mixed-Income Development: Resident Perceptions of the Benefits and Disadvantages of Two Developments in Chicago

Policy-makers in several countries are turning to income- and tenure-mixing strategies in an attempt to reverse decades of social and economic isolation in impoverished urban areas. In the US city of Chicago, all high-rise public housing developments across the city are being demolished, public housing residents are being dispersed throughout the metropolitan area and 10 new mixed-income developments are being created on the footprint of former public housing complexes. Findings are presented from in-depth interviews with residents across income levels and tenures at two mixed-income developments and the paper explores residents’ perceptions of the physical, psychological and social impacts of the mixed-income setting on their lives.

Getting the Most Out of Service Learning: Maximizing Student, University and Community Impact

Service learning has become a very popular pedagogical approach for enhancing student learning at institutions of higher education across the United Statesby involving students in community service as a part of their educational experience. However, despite the vast number of service-learning efforts at universities across the nation, there is often little attention to the intended and actual results of the service learning. A growing body of literature calls for more attention to the impacts of service-learning efforts. Some service-learning experiences may actually reinforce negative or counterproductive attitudes among students. Many efforts fall short of maximizing the potential social change impact of the service and learning activity. We review and compare some of the various ways that service learning impacts has been discussed and measured in the literature. We propose that intentionally aiming for impact at three levels—on students, on the academic institution, and on the community—may be the key to making the most of any service-learning project. We further describe and draw lessons from a pilot project that build toward greater service-learning impact at our school of social work.

SOCIAL INTERACTION IN MIXED-INCOME DEVELOPMENTS: RELATIONAL EXPECTATIONS AND EMERGING REALITY

ABSTRACT: In many cities, public housing has come to exemplify concentrated urban poverty and the social problems associated with it. One major policy response to addressing these problems is the demolition and redevelopment of public housing complexes as mixed-income communities. Several theoretical propositions that lie behind this policy are based on assumptions about the ways in which living among higher-income residents can lead to relationships and interactions that may benefit poor people. Based on in-depth qualitative research in two mixed-income developments in Chicago, this paper explores the dynamics of social interaction in an effort to better understand the processes and factors that influence such interaction on the ground, the differential experience of residents from different backgrounds, and the factors that contribute to their decision-making about and interpretation of social relations with their neighbors. This analysis helps to better interpret the findings of earlier studies and craft more informed expectations about such interactions and their likely effects.

EARLY RESIDENT EXPERIENCES AT A NEW MIXED-INCOME DEVELOPMENT IN CHICAGO

ABSTRACT: Mixed-income development is an increasingly popular poverty deconcentration strategy in the United States but there have been few in-depth studies about the experiences of residents once they move in to the new housing developments. This article explores the early experiences of residents of all income levels who have moved into a new mixed-income development on the south side of Chicago. In-depth interviews have been conducted with 46 residents of the development, including 23 former public housing residents. Interviews were also conducted with a comparison group of 69 public housing residents who did not move to the development. I find that public housing movers appear to be a substantially different group than non-movers. I find that overall satisfaction with the new development is quite high among residents of all income levels. Early social relations are limited, particularly across income levels, and there are key barriers to interaction, such as physical design, stigma and assumptions based on class and housing status, and segregated associational structures.

Participation, Deliberation, and Decision Making The Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion in Mixed-Income Developments

This paper explores the mechanisms, processes, and dynamics of participation and deliberation in three newly created, mixed-income communities being built on the footprint of former public housing developments in Chicago. Our findings reflect enduring dilemmas about the challenge of democratic participation and representation for low-income citizens in the context of urban revitalization efforts. In the current case, a fundamental tension exists between two orientations to organizing participation, one (dominant) orientation that privileges “mainstreaming” public housing resident participation into collaborative governance structures and existing market and civil society mechanisms, and another that suggests the continuing need for dedicated mechanisms that maximize public housing representation. In this paper, we frame the theoretical debates over the potential for establishing effective mechanisms to promote deliberative democracy at a neighborhood-level. We then provide an overview of the participatory landscape in these communities, explore how key stakeholders view participation, and examine how the organization of opportunities for deliberation and emerging patterns of participation shape dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in these contexts. Based on these findings, we suggest implications for policy and practice.

The New Stigma of Relocated Public Housing Residents: Challenges to Social Identity in Mixed-Income Developments

Public housing residents have long experienced stigma as members of an urban “underclass.” One policy response is the creation of mixed–income developments; by deconcentrating poverty and integrating residents into communities in which their residences are indistinguishable from neighbors, such efforts might reduce stigma associated with residency in traditional public housing. Through in–depth interviews with 35 relocated public housing residents and 184 field observations at three mixed–income developments in Chicago, we find this is not the case. Stigma associated with living in public housing is ameliorated, yet residents report that their experience of stigma has intensified in other ways. The negative response of higher–income residents, along with stringent screening and rule enforcement, amplifies the sense of difference many residents feel in these contexts. We demonstrate that this new form of stigma has generated a range of coping responses as relocated public housing residents seek to maintain eligibility while buttressing their social identity.

Integrating the inner city : the promise and perils of mixed-income public housing transformation

For many years Chicagos looming large-scale housing projects defined the city, and their demolition and redevelopment via the Chicago Housing Authoritys Plan for Transformation has been perhaps the most startling change in the citys urban landscape in the last twenty years. The Plan, which reflects a broader policy effort to remake public housing in cities across the country, seeks to deconcentrate poverty by transforming high-poverty public housing complexes into mixed-income developments and thereby integrating once-isolated public housing residents into the social and economic fabric of the city. But is the Plan an ambitious example of urban regeneration or a not-so-veiled effort at gentrification? In the most thorough examination of mixed-income public housing redevelopment to date, Robert J. Chaskin and Mark L. Joseph draw on five years of field research, in-depth interviews, and volumes of data to demonstrate that while considerable progress has been made in transforming the complexes physically, the integrationist goals of the policy have not been met. They provide a highly textured investigation into what it takes to design, finance, build, and populate a mixed-income development, and they illuminate the many challenges and limitations of the policy as a solution to urban poverty. Timely and relevant, Chaskin and Josephs findings raise concerns about the increased privatization of housing for the poor while providing a wide range of recommendations for a better way forward.