Volume 17, Issue 2

2006

 

If, as Joseph argues, there is so little evidence that mixed-income development alleviates poverty, why does it enjoy such wide acceptance as a method of delivering affordable housing? I argue that such development, while still small in scale, is largely faithful to the economic integration that occurs organically in most urban neighborhoods today. Moreover, the greater degree of social control and higher quality of public and private services in mixed-income versus high-poverty neighborhoods provide benefits for residents and local governments alike. For these and other reasons, many European nations have embraced mixed-income strategies even more actively than the United States has.

Although additional research is surely needed, Joseph’s findings on mixed-income urban developments should be viewed in the wider context of what we know about “dispersal” and “inclusionary” housing strategies that embrace
economic integration as a viable antidote to concentrated urban poverty.