Exploring the persistence of racial segregation as a result of U.S. housing policies—policies intended to break patterns of segregation, not reproduce them.
Eva Rosen asks a question of the obvious trend of people with Housing Choice Vouchers moving into impoverished and racially segregated neighborhoods: "Why are these patterns of segregation being recreated under a system that was meant to undo them?"
To answer that question, the article identifies and explores role that landlords plan in "sorting residents in and out of neighborhoods." According to Rosen's research, "there is a hierarchy of tenants, just as there is a hierarchy of homes. If the landlord plays the matching game wisely, 'there's a tenant for every house.' What this means though, is that the tenants at the bottom of the social ladder are also being matched to the worst homes, in the worst neighborhoods." The article goes on to describe more about how the matching process works and why landlords make their decisions about prospective tenants.
Rosen also recommends a proposed policy that could address the problem: "The formula that calculates Fair Market Rent should be reformed to use numbers for individual neighborhoods, rather than citywide averages." Notably, the Department of Housing and Urban Development recently proposed just such a policy [pdf].
FULL STORY: The Power of Landlords

Maui's Vacation Rental Debate Turns Ugly
Verbal attacks, misinformation campaigns and fistfights plague a high-stakes debate to convert thousands of vacation rentals into long-term housing.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

San Francisco Suspends Traffic Calming Amidst Record Deaths
Citing “a challenging fiscal landscape,” the city will cease the program on the heels of 42 traffic deaths, including 24 pedestrians.

Adaptive Reuse Will Create Housing in a Suburban Texas Strip Mall
A developer is reimagining a strip mall property as a mixed-use complex with housing and retail.

Study: Anti-Homelessness Laws Don’t Work
Research shows that punitive measures that criminalized unhoused people don’t help reduce homelessness.

In U.S., Urban Gondolas Face Uphill Battle
Cities in Latin America and Europe have embraced aerial transitways — AKA gondolas — as sustainable, convenient urban transport, especially in tricky geographies. American cities have yet to catch up.
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