An Evaluation of Moving to Opportunity

The subject of this post is a 2001 study by Mark Shroder which explores the results of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program. The program is an experimental implementation of Chicago's Gautreaux Project on a national scale.

The intent of the Gautreaux Project was to allow families living in low income neighborhoods and public housing developments to relocate to higher income neighborhoods in an attempt to better their socioeconomic status. This was initiated after the 1966 court case Dorothy Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority ordered the Chicago Housing Authority to take steps to end segregation in public housing.

This project involved moving participating low income residents from inner-city areas to suburban areas, where neighborhood economic status and school quality were by nature higher because of the presence of higher income individuals and families.

The project found that the group that was relocated had an increased rate of employment and that the children of those that relocated had an increased percentage of high school graduation than those who did not.

MTO has been designed to further explore these findings, and established three classes of participants. A control group that received no housing assistance, a Section 8 comparison group, and a group which received special Section 8 vouchers usable only in areas with a poverty rate of less than 10%. Several cities were included in this experiment, thus eliminating any geographical bias to the results.

In all of these groups, the majority of subjects were African American. Less than 40% of total subjects were employed.

The study noted that most of the applicants had been, or had friends or relatives who had been, victims of crime and that this was their reason for applying to the program. Other reasons included the desire of better schools for children and for larger residences.

Because of these desires, it can be said that the group "self selected", in that those who expressed a desire to leave immediately took advantage of the program, making it difficult to study the effects of MTO on group dynamics and social networks.  

The study also noted that participants were widely dispersed once moved, pointing out that simply re-concentrating poverty in different areas would not solve any problems. It also detailed how not all of the families with the option to move to other areas did so.

Shroder's work then gives summaries of other studies done on the MTO program and attempts to make generalizations from those.

A study by Katz, Kling, and Liebman found that those who relocated felt safer, noticed less neighborhood drug use, had fewer domestic issues, and described themselves as increasingly healthy. This study did not examine poverty or employment.

A study by Ludwig, Duncan, and Pinkston found that those who had relocated were slightly less dependent on welfare than those who did not.

Finally, a study by Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn found that those who relocated had decreased instances of depression and anxiety, and that parenting skills had improved significantly.

Shroder notes that more studies will be needed to determine the effectiveness of the MTO program, but states that the initial research looks promising.

While MTO does seem at least initially to be successful, it comes at the price of disrupting the existing social networks between residents of public housing. Instead of moving low income residents out of a community, higher income residents should be moved in to under-occupied residences. These would allow existing social networks to be strengthened instead of being removed.

Lower income residents also have a stronger attachment to their residences than higher income individuals, as they have fewer options for replacement housing should they be forced to leave.

While Moving to Opportunity was successful at reducing individual poverty, it did little to help poor neighborhoods. This is something that needs to be examined closely, as strong neighborhoods are what allow social networks to develop and for information about job opportunities, educational opportunities, and political organization to be disseminated.

A New Approach to Urban Crime Control

A recent book by David Kennedy titled Don't Shoot, One Man, a Street Fellowship, and The End of Violence in Inner City America puts a new face on the fight against urban drug and gun violence. In the book, Kennedy discusses his new approach for combating such violence, which he notes has been implemented in cities such as Boston, Cincinnati, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The approach to violent crime detailed in this book involves identifying a small group of worst offenders, arresting the worst of those, usually with Federal assistance, and then holding community dialogue with the rest and informing them that if they do not stop their acts of violence they will meet a similar fate.

Kennedy notes that when these methods, since given the name “Ceasefire”, were enacted, the type of crime targeted dropped noticeably and swiftly.

In addition, he notes that the presence of so much violent crime for so long has severely damaged urban neighborhoods, both economically and socially. Kennedy points out that none of the economic, social, or racial problems affecting these communities can be addressed until the crime that permeates them is controlled in a lasting manner. However, he does not give any indication of when a community might be ready to move on to those tasks.

The book points out that the structure of violent activity is the same from city to city, regardless of the size, number, or ethnic makeup of gangs. Kennedy details how the majority of violent activity can be directly traced to a small group of core gang members, the most violent of these members can be targeted with policing in cooperation with federal authorities, and the rest can then be targeted with community outreach. Kennedy describes how round-table meetings were held with local, state, and federal police, prosecutors, community activists, and gang members. In these meetings, authorities explained to the gang members the gravity of the charges that could be brought against them if their actions continued, which, he noted, many offenders were unaware of. Community organizers explained the damage that years of criminal activity and accidental killings of children have wrought on communities, and the fear it brings to parents. These meetings also offer support services, such as housing and job opportunities, to replace income from selling drugs or other criminal activities.

Kennedy notes that this approach has been implemented to target various crimes, from shootings to drug markets to domestic violence, in a large number of cities and has been extremely successful.

However, he also discusses the political turbulence associated with such implementation, noting that in some cities, political shifts or changes in police department personnel can cause the program to lapse and be discarded. Other times, city administrators can be hostile to outside ideas, and try to stonewall their progress or simply ignore them. Kennedy notes that this happened in Baltimore, but since the program has developed and become more widely implemented, it was adopted there as well.

Kennedy's book presents an original perspective on the issue of urban crime, and one which has immediate and significant impact. His book should prove to be pivotal in the fight against crime, and a starting point in rebuilding communities and making urban areas more attractive places to live.

Neighborhood Violence and Gated Communities

One thing that should be discussed in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting and the subsequent trial of George Zimmerman, and that should also enter the discourse given America's abnormally high gun crime rate, is the role of neighborhood design in public safety.



Trayvon Martin (an African American) was killed in a gated community by a man, George Zimmerman (Caucasian and Peruvian), who claimed only that he “looked suspicious”.



Discussion on the nature of this event has focused primarily on Martin's appearance, Zimmerman's actions and previous history with law enforcement, racial politics, and weapons usage. However, almost no attention was paid to the location of the crime.

The purpose of a gated community is to keep criminals out, an objective that is met with mixed results. A side effect of this is that anyone who is not immediately recognizable is viewed suspiciously and assumed to be undesirable. This is especially problematic with minorities, who are generally viewed as lower-income and predisposed to criminal behavior. This was the case with Trayvon. Zimmerman is believed to have asked him what his purpose for being in the neighborhood was after Trayvon asked Zimmerman why he was following him.

In addition to this, it is worth examining the typical resident of a gated community. Often, personal safety is their number one priority (hence the gates), and not necessarily solid community building. This same group is also a vigorous supporter of gun ownership. This is another important aspect of the Trayvon Martin shooting, local police urged George Zimmerman to procure a firearm several months prior to the shooting taking place.

Another aspect that comes into play is the weapons effect, which notes that the presence of weapons (usually firearms) can aid in rapidly accelerating violent scenarios, even if the weapons are not actually used in commission of those acts.



These circumstances can combine to create communities with unusually high senses of fear and paranoia, despite the illusion of safety offered by limited access to the community. This is evidenced by the fact that crime rates in gated communities are on par with crime rates in non-gated communities.

All of these factors combined can create a vicious cycle of violence. Criminal activity can incite senses of fear, which can lead residents of the community to procure weapons. The presence of these weapons can later lead to commission of more violent acts, which can then lead residents to buy more weapons. It seems that this is what happened in the case of Trayvon Martin.

6 Ways Urban Development Impacts You (and why Suburban Development is Bad)

1) Money: The amount of money you spend on transportation expenses relative to income increases with the number of cars you own. This is due to acquisition costs, fuel, and maintenance. This means that the farther away from your job you live (i.e. the more you spend on fuel and the more necessary multiple cars become) the less money you have to spend on other needs or to save. Mixed use zoning, transit oriented development, and high quality public transportation can reduce these costs. In addition to this, suburban housing is subsidized to an extent by the Federal Housing Administration and the loans it provides and guarantees towards single family homes, thus the true costs of suburban housing are hidden from the homeowners. These loans cannot be used to purchase residencies in multi-unit buildings and similar incentives are not available to renters.

2) Health: The lifestyles encouraged by different development types vary wildly. Suburban development is based on the car, which means minimal walking and lots of fast food restaurants. Urban development is pedestrian friendly, encouraging walking and transit use. However, the increased consumption of fast food and decrease of physical activity due to primarily suburban development patterns have put strain on our medical system. In addition to this, the long commutes created by automobile centric development have an adverse impact on mental health, as they cause levels of stress to increase, which in turn can cause violent behavior and loss of workplace productivity.

3) Reenforcing or Breaking Stereotypes: Due to the factors that were in play before and during the beginning of suburban growth, poverty has become unfairly synonymous with race. Ethnic minorities are almost always depicted as being impoverished, while Caucasians are almost always depicted as being wealthy. This has then created another unfair relationship between ethnic minorities and predisposal to criminal behavior, causing public housing projects and mixed income projects to be opposed along racial lines, thinking that they will bring crime. These same projects, if successful, will bring their occupants out of poverty regardless of race, and can be used to break these unfair depictions of ethnic minorities.

4) Quality of One's Living Environment: In addition to the health and economic effects of automobiles, large quantities of cars can also create low quality living environments. Large roads and freeways create noise and light pollution, and parking lots use land that could be developed or used for parks. In addition to this, pollution from cars creates smog and poor air quality, leading to additional health issues.

5) Decrease in Quality of Public Services: As the density of development decreases and the amount of land consumed by it increases, applicable services such as police and fire departments, schools, and utilities become more expensive and less efficient because they have to cover more ground. Since the fiscal needs of these organizations are not adequately met, their quality becomes unevenly distributed and overall quality decreases.

6) Crime: Sound urban development and urban revitalization includes use of tools such as mixed income housing, mixed use development, and transit oriented development. These serve to bring investment and people to the areas they are built in. The high presence of people and mix of uses serves as a deterrent for crime because they provide public surveillance of the street space and property.

Is Gentrification Good?

One aspect of New Urbanism that is often discussed is gentrification and the role it supposedly plays in making neglected areas of cities attractive again. However, its danger comes with the fact that it has potential to uproot current residents of the area being gentrified, and to replace current services with ones that will seem to be beneficial to the new residents.

These issues manifest themselves in the way that wealth (and the lack thereof) are personified in American society. Middle and high income residents are likely to be white, and low income residents are likely to be ethnic minorities.

And herein lies the problem. The economic issue of gentrification (middle and high income people moving into an area of investment and displacing the lower income groups who used to live there) is suddenly turned into a racial issue, where white residents are seen as kicking black residents out of their houses and forcing them to move elsewhere, either into other neglected areas or into public housing.

Because of this, gentrification areas and building public or affordable housing can sometimes be opposed along racial lines.  

The solution to this conundrum lies in breaking the perceived link between ethnic minorities and poverty, and thus ethnic minorities and criminal activity.

This can be accomplished through rebuilding an area while maintaining its architectural style and building public housing units interspersed with market rate housing units, allowing public housing units to be distributed to tenants in the form of vouchers. The value of the vouchers would decrease as the residents' income increased until the residents could own the property outright.  

Yet another way to determine whether a unit would be market rate or public housing would be to make every other unit that comes up for sale in a neighborhood public or market rate.

Either way, there should be no architectural differences between the public and market rate units. Doing such would create the opinion that occupants of public housing are by some means inferior to occupants of market rate housing.

Good public housing should not keep the poor in poverty.

Taking the approach of sandwiching public housing between units of market rate or affordable housing would both confer the social benefits of mixed income housing to the lower income residents and eliminate the stereotype of racial groups being predisposed to poverty or crime.

A good way to picture this would be to imagine side streets with rowhouses along them, every other rowhouse on one side of a street would be public housing, and the same for the other side of the street. Main avenues would be bordered by mixed use development with some commercial office space thrown in.

If you take away one thing from this article, it should be the following:

Ethnic minorities do not cause crime, poverty causes crime.