Full Citation
Title: A Method for Evaluating Diversity and Segregation in HOPE VI Housing Neighborhoods – Focus on Cuyahoga and Franklin Counties, Ohio
Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis
Publication Year: 2023
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Abstract: The increase in rate of international migration to the United States since the late 1960s, coupled with a generally high rate among minority populations, altered the racial and ethnic composition of America’s urban neighborhoods. The changing demography and increase in shares of minority subpopulations underscore the salience of conducting multigroup studies of residential and socioeconomic segregation beyond the traditional white versus black dichotomy. Segregation based on subgroup characteristics (de facto or de jure) is problematic, particularly for racial minorities and low-income residents who are limited in moving to areas they can afford. These minority neighborhoods are associated with physical and socioeconomic disadvantage due to public and private deinvestment. The undercurrents of segregation were explored in the racial tipping point and white flight literature where non-Hispanic white majority residents exit old inner and central city neighborhoods when the share of minority populations increase beyond a critical threshold. Due to strong correlations between race and income, white flight also tends to concentrate poverty in the abandoned neighborhoods. Beyond this relationship iv between personal choice and segregation however, local and federal public policies have also been historically linked with segregating urban America. Federal highway programs, mortgage loan underwriting processes, suburban housing developments, and restrictive local zoning laws have created race and income-based segregated spaces. Also, reinvestment programs aimed revitalizing physical and socially distressed neighborhoods tend to yield minimal outcomes. This is often due to either limited funding compared to the magnitude of the problem or lack of sustained political commitment, overemphasis on market-based ideas which alienate minorities and low-income residents, and emphasis on new urbanism housing designs associated net losses in the public housing stock. In this dissertation, I utilized a new method (the Hsd. Index) as a composite measure of segregation to study the joint contributions of multiple socioeconomic factors (race and ethnicity, educational attainment, immigration, income, unemployment, and poverty) in understanding the nuanced dynamics of segregation in and around the immediate neighborhoods of HOPE VI, a major federal mixed-income housing and revitalization program, between 1990 and 2010. I used projects from Ohio’s two largest counties, Cuyahoga and Franklin Counties, as case studies. Among other concerns, I was interested in understanding whether HOPE VI projects decreased segregation in these neighborhoods and whether there were any differences in outcome between the two counties. I also provided the procedure for deriving and replicating Hsd. Index for future studies. I found mixed results. First, while overall segregation decreased in Franklin County, it generally increased in Cuyahoga County. Second, there was overall increase in the incidence of segregation in the immediate HOPE VI neighborhoods for both counties. v Finally, minimal improvements observed in Franklin County were within shorter radius (< 1 mile) of the HOPE VI project but in Cuyahoga County the minimal improvement was observed for census tracts located farther away from the projects (≥ 2 mile). Based on these results, HOPE VI projects in Cuyahoga and Franklin Counties created small changes in the levels of segregation around the projects. The differences observed in both counties are likely attributable to forces acting in each county beyond the influence of HOPE VI. This study and its findings provide another perspective for studying dynamics of multigroup segregation associated with the implementation of HOPE VI or other public interventions in areas with similar characteristics as found in Cuyahoga and Franklin Counties.
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Authors: Abayateye, Philemon
Institution: University of Toledo
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Pages: 1-287
Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS
Topics: Housing and Segregation, Race and Ethnicity
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