Do Poor Neighborhoods Keep People Poor?

"Beginning in 1994, the federal government offered a lottery for housing vouchers to families in five major cities. Families were randomly assigned to different groups. One group received vouchers to be used specifically to subsidize rents in neighborhoods where poverty was low. About 860 families eventually moved."

"Another group, of 1,440 families, wasn't offered vouchers and, initially at least, stayed in high-poverty neighborhoods. Researchers have since tracked and compared the fortunes of the two groups."

"The program, called Moving to Opportunity, was administered by HUD...When the program was launched, housing vouchers were seen as a promising antidote to urban poverty. Researchers had pinpointed ghettos as a culprit in the worsening fortunes of many poor, minority families. Free them from the poisonous cocktail of drugs and crime brewing in city ghettos, scholars reasoned, and the families would have a chance to leave poverty behind."

"But results show that may only partially be true...Boys whose families moved actually fared worse than boys who stayed in bad neighborhoods. Girls, however, fared significantly better. Adults felt better, physically and mentally, than those who stayed behind, but didn't do better financially."

[Editor's note: Although this article is only available to WSJ subscribers, it is available to Planetizen readers for free through the link below for a period of seven days.]