Housing and Urban Planning (Research)

While Housing Shortage Worsens, Funding is Cut

The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, funds local community development projects 16% cut. HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which helps pay for affordable housing projects, was cut by 35%. HOPE VI and the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative, which aim to revitalize distressed public housing by transforming it into mixed-income developments, were slashed by 50%. Redevelopment Funding, the largest source of funding for affordable housing in California, 1.7 billion dollars, completely eliminated.

By Manuel Perlo Cohen

The global economic crisis, which began officially on September 15, 2008 due to the bankruptcy of the investment bank Lehman Brothers, has spread throughout a wide range of countries and regions. It has penetrated rural areas and cities, has simultaneously taken over large metropolises and small urban centers, and has caused devastation in neighborhoods as well as in central districts. In short, it has spread over the most diverse geographies. However, the devastating effect of this phenomenon differs considerably among large regions, countries, cities and neighborhoods. In the case of urban locales—this study’s central theme—we can identify cities whose main macroeconomic indicators (employment, production, investment, consumption, public-­sector spending) have suffered considerable deterioration. However, we see at the same time that some urban locales have been able to mitigate the most adverse effects, and still others have emerged from the crisis onto a path of sustained growth.

An analysis of migration data from the past four decennial censuses at regional, state, and metropolitan-area levels indicates that: The South scored net gains of black migrants from all three of the other regions of the U.S. during the late 1990s, reversing a 35-year trend. Of the 10 states that suffered the greatest net loss of blacks between 1965 and 1970, five ranked among the top 10 states for attracting blacks between 1995 and 2000. Southern metropolitan areas, particularly Atlanta, led the way in attracting black migrants in the late 1990s. In contrast, the major metropolitan areas of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco experienced the greatest out-migration of blacks during the same period. Among migrants from the Northeast, Midwest, and West regions, blacks were more likely than whites to select destinations in the South. Atlanta and Washington, D.C. were the top destinations for black migrants from all three regions; white migrants moved to a broader set of areas including Miami, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. College-educated individuals lead the new migration into the South. The "brain gain" states of Georgia, Texas, and Maryland attracted the most black college graduates from 1995 to 2000, while New York suffered the largest net loss. After several decades as a major black migrant "magnet," California lost more black migrants than it gained during the late 1990s. Southern states, along with western "spillover" states like Arizona and Nevada, received the largest numbers of black out-migrants from California.

By William H. Frey

Old images of race and place in America are changing rapidly. Nowhere are these shifts more apparent than in major U.S. cities and their suburbs. An analysis of data from the 1990, 2000, and 2010 decennial censuses reveals that: Hispanics now outnumber blacks and represent the largest minority group in major American cities. The Hispanic share of population rose in primary cities of the largest 100 metropolitan areas from 2000 to 2010.  Across all cities in 2010, 41 percent of residents were white, 26 percent were Hispanic, and 22 percent were black. Well over half of America’s cities are now majority non-white. Primary cities in 58 metropolitan areas were “majority minority” in 2010, up from 43 in 2000. Cities lost only about half as many whites in the 2000s as in the 1990s, but “black flight” from cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Detroit accelerated in the 2000s. Minorities represent 35 percent of suburban residents, similar to their share of overall U.S. population. Among the 100 largest metro areas, 36 feature “melting pot” suburbs where at least 35 percent of residents are non-white. The suburbs of Houston, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. became majority minority in the 2000s. More than half of all minority groups in large metro areas, including blacks, now reside in the suburbs. The share of blacks in large metro areas living in suburbs rose from 37 percent in 1990, to 44 percent in 2000, to 51 percent in 2010. Higher shares of whites (78 percent), Asians (62 percent), and Hispanics (59 percent) in large metro areas live in suburbs.

By Steven Raphael and Michael A. Stoll

The Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution has released a report on job decentralization and the challenges of the poor as more and more  jobs move to the suburbs. "Understanding the association between employment decentralization and the suburbanization of poverty is important because of the continued growth of the suburban poor," write the report's authors. "In 2005, the suburban poor outnumbered their city counterparts by almost one million. And during the first year of the recession that began in 2007, suburbs added more than twice as many poor people as did their cities." The report, "Job Sprawl and the Suburbanization of Poverty" by Steven Raphael and Michael A. Stoll, suggests that the responsiveness of the poor to the outward movement of jobs, particularly racial and ethnic minority poor, does not appear to be as strong as that for the population as a whole. Are the poor hurt by their inability to readily follow jobs? The researchers suggest the answer is yes, at least as measured by earnings and employment. In particular, the poor are put at a disadvantage by low car ownership rates and the lack of adequate transit options. Researchers said the potential higher commute costs are likely a disincentive to obtaining suburban jobs.