Ep 44: HOPE VI Public Housing Redevelopment with Rebekah Levine Coley

HOPE VI was a federal program running from 1993–2010 that sought to redevelop distressed, poor, racially segregated public housing into mixed-income communities. In that time it helped build nearly 100,000 new homes for people of varying incomes, and with the involvement of both the public and private sectors. Its goal was to reduce concentrated poverty and racial segregation; so how did it do? Rebekah Levine Coley joins us to share her research into the impacts of HOPE VI redevelopment on neighborhood poverty, racial composition, and community resources. We also discuss the lessons from earlier generations of public housing and urban renewal that informed HOPE VI, and what the program can tell us about gentrification, displacement, the role of the private sector, and much more.

Show notes:

• Coley, R. L., Spielvogel, B., Hwang, D., Lown, J., & Teixeira, S. (2022). Did HOPE VI Move Communities to Opportunity? How Public Housing Redevelopment Affected Neighborhood Poverty, Racial Composition, and Resources 1990–2016. Housing Policy Debate, 1-32.
• Phillips, S. (2020). The Affordable City: Strategies for Putting Housing Within Reach (and Keeping it There). Island Press. (Use promo code PHILLIPS for 20% off.)
• Fulton, W. (2022). Place and Prosperity: How Cities Help Us to Connect and Innovate. Island Press.
• Wilson, W. J. (1987). The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. University of Chicago Press.
• Crane, J. (1991). The epidemic theory of ghettos and neighborhood effects on dropping out and teenage childbearing. American journal of Sociology, 96(5), 1226-1259.
• Goetz, E. G. (2013). New Deal Ruins: Race, economic justice, and public housing policy. Cornell University Press.
• Goetz, E. G. (2013). The Audacity of HOPE VI: Discourse and the dismantling of public housing. Cities, 35, 342-348.
• A great source of additional background and data on the HOPE VI program: Gress, T., Cho, S., & Joseph, M. (2016). HOPE VI data compilation and analysis. National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities, Case Western Reserve University.