Fostering Inclusion: Whose Problem? Which Problem?

by Xavier de Souza Briggs
Ford Foundation

Asking "what would it take"—about housing segregation or any other challenge— assumes, on some level, that we have adequate agreement that some condition or pattern is, in fact, a problem. But in America, we have never been able to take that for granted, not about most of our big challenges, not even about the things that strike many of us as profoundly inconsistent with fairness and equal opportunity as core American values. Moreover, we have shown a persistent and very particular indecision and impasse when it comes to acting on housing segregation. The political Left remains ambivalent about it, wondering whether it is urgent to address segregation per se, whether such effort comes at a cost to other urgent efforts, and whether segregation can be tackled in ways that do not stigmatize poor people of color in particular. Put another way, the seemingly natural allies for an agenda to tackle inequality by addressing segregation have mixed feelings about both the problem and at least some of the solutions. The political Right, on the other hand, has been generally hostile to the idea that segregation is a problem, even if most Americans, on both Left and Right, agree that discrimination in the housing market is not only illegal but morally wrong. And many who go further—who agree that segregation itself is a problem—are less convinced that it warrants government intervention.

These are some of the reasons that we, as a country, "rediscover" segregation and its enormous human costs every decade or so, only to conclude that it is too intractable or questionable to tackle with serious resolve. This rediscovering happened after the civil unrest in Los Angeles in 1992, again after Hurricane Katrina put concentrated black poverty and public outrage squarely on TV screens nationwide, and again as political and media attention to extreme inequality has gown in recent years. Among scholars and opinion leaders, the influential work of economist Raj Chetty and collaborators points to segregation as a key barrier to economic mobility in America—and one that varies sharply between more and less segregated regions of the country. This latest-generation work supports earlier conclusions, by sociologists Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton in American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass and by others, that housing segregation by race and income is, in fact, one of the lynchpins of American inequality. Along with mass incarceration, it is one of the structural patterns that differentiates America from other wealthy nations (though Europe faces growing challenges too). Segregated housing patterns are durable and enduring in part because they are sustained by forces that many view as legitimate and even unavoidable, if unfortunate. These patterns have been called out explicitly at least since lawyer and planning professor Charles Abrams's book, Forbidden Neighbors: A Study of Prejudice in Housing, and by national policymakers since the landmark Kerner Commission report on the riots that tore apart American cities 50 years ago. For now, there are no signs that we as a people are serious about changing segregation.

In this brief post, I'd like to offer a specific reading of the very thoughtful symposium framing paper and the larger project of which it is a part. I work at a grant-making foundation long committed to expanding knowledge about, and promoting solutions to, inequality, including solutions that center on housing and specifically housing segregation. I have also pursued these aims over several stints in federal government service and tackled them as a community planner at the local level. Finally, about sixteen years ago, when I was a researcher and educator, I organized a symposium and collection of papers—led by the Harvard Civil Rights Project and cosponsored by the Joint Center for Housing Studies and the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program—focused on segregation, its causes and consequences, and "what it would take" to effect real change at scale. That produced an edited volume, The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America. I want to briefly look back—asking what has or has not changed in our understanding of the problems and potential solutions over the past decade plus—and also look forward.

Starting Points

The 2001 symposium had several points of departure, and revisiting them now offers some perspective on how our national mood, key attention-getting trends, political leadership, and more have evolved. One starting point was the sharply increased attention, in the late 1990s, to America's dominant pattern of urban sprawl and the idea of pursuing more sustainable or "smart" growth alternatives. The interest in this issue sparked healthy debate, though mainly among scholars, planners and allied professionals, about the tradeoffs between environmental aims and values of equity, including housing affordability. The environmental justice movement also drew attention to spatial inequality, focusing on the highly disproportionate exposure of poor communities of color to toxins and other environmental risks.

Advancing this debate seemed important in light of evidence that economic inequality was increasing sharply in America, whether measured in wealth, income, or other dimensions. We wondered about more environmentally sustainable but increasingly unaffordable communities pulling away from distressed, built-up and—in some cases—highly polluted places.

Other starting points were even more tectonic, driven by large-scale demographic change. Much of the wealthy world has modest to zero population growth, but America is different: We are a large and still-growing nation, thanks mainly to immigration, which is, in turn, driving greater racial and ethnic diversity. In the 1990s, for example, the population of most American cities would have shrunk if not for immigration. What is more, as of the 2000 census, an estimated one-third of the built environment needed to accommodate population growth in America over the next generation did not yet exist. It represented projected new development. This underscored the huge stakes associated with how we grow, particularly the prospects for inclusionary growth. It also underlined the fact that our debates about persistent segregation cannot be limited to public housing in inner cities or to other long-established fixtures of our current spatial footprint. We always need to be asking about what's next too—about the course of new development, both infill and at the edges of urban regions. And of course, we need to pay attention to how these development trends influence each other and influence our politics and sense of what's possible.

To sum up, in 2001, for the intersecting reasons outlined above, we asked: Can an increasingly diverse nation hope to deal with growing economic inequality if the dominant growth model "on the ground" is one of persistent segregation by race and income? Do the parts of that equation add up?

By comparison, the framing paper for this year's symposium centers more squarely on the growth of inequality and the much greater political and even cultural salience of the issue now versus 15 or so years ago. That salience is encouraging. In terms of local trends, the American media and the public are even more aware now, than after the economic boom of the late 1990s, that "cities are back." Major cities that still showed substantial decline a decade ago—New Orleans and large sections of Detroit, for example—have seen their population trends reverse and have attracted enormous investment since, especially over the course of the recovery from the Great Recession. Housing prices are up, structurally, along with the job economy in those and other revitalizing cities. So, a debate about the drivers of segregation and responses to it today appropriately gives greater weight, than did earlier discussions, to urban redevelopment—and the need for "development without displacement," as advocates in revitalizing cities frame the need.

The sense of displacement, of being pushed out, is much sharper now than in 2001. But in point of fact, the pattern is nothing new, and some observers forecast this predicament long ago, linking it to the forces driving urban vitality after decades of decline. For example, in Dual City: Restructuring New York, John H. Mollenkopf and Manuel Castells showed that New York's comeback from the low point of the bankruptcy crisis of the 1970s had made the city a global magnet for investment capital and high-income occupations, sharply inflating land values and housing prices. Over the 1980s, they reported, poverty had been pushed outward, "like a ring donut," from neighborhoods in the city's core to its outer boroughs as well as its more racially diverse, fiscally vulnerable inner suburbs. The subsequent decades have merely sustained and accelerated those trends, with New York City showing itself one of the canaries in the coal mine. What Detroit and other cities are seeing and debating now, New York, Boston and other "comeback cities" experienced a couple of decades earlier. And it is structural, not an artifact of one business cycle or another. These trends were barely interrupted by the Great Recession.

Finally, having thus far emphasized those durable, long-run structural trends, I want to acknowledge more recent developments. In addition to the growth of inequality, the framing and other papers in this year's symposium reflect the enormous impacts of the foreclosure crisis, which we had only dimly foreshadowed in the 2005 book's chapter on "The Dual Mortgage Market: The Persistence of Discrimination in Mortgage Lending," by William Apgar and Allegra Calder. Beyond a huge loss of housing wealth and greater regulation in the mortgage market, there is another important legacy of the crisis, and it is a healthy one: We are much more conscious now, than in the real estate boom of the early 2000s, about how profoundly the workings of the real estate industry, and its rapid evolution thanks to information technology, can hurt us. In that vein, one of the most ground-breaking sessions in this year's JCHS symposium focused on the present and future of housing searches in an era of platform apps, algorithms, and technology-mediated screening of many kinds. The session put housing scholars in direct exchange with senior analysts and strategists from online real estate search companies that dominate the housing marketplace. Housing searches were different, and our understanding of them much more limited, 15 years ago.

Solution Set

If the unequal housing marketplace has evolved—dramatically in some ways—over the past 15 plus years, our sense of the best-available levers for changing segregation has not. Nor has our story about why acting on segregation is both legitimate and urgent, both big and structural and doable and achievable. To be fair, by some measures, our prescriptions today are not all that different from those championed by the "open housing" movement—the inheritors of the civil rights movement and the Kerner Commission warnings—in the early 1970s. This suggests at least three lessons over the long run.

The first is that we, as a country, lack will more than we lack imagination—let alone sophisticated analysis. The second is that we need new stories and ways to tell them. In recent memory, the very best case against segregation was made by comedian, John Oliver, who in 2016 used his satirical cable news program Last Week Tonight to explain three extremely important things about how America works: first, how school and housing segregation enable each other; second, why they guarantee that America will reproduce stark inequalities from one generation to the next; and third, how these closely linked forms of segregation stubbornly resist change.

The third lesson over the long run is that beyond lacking a compelling story to motivate change, we sometimes lack perspective as well. Take the persistent tendency to conflate discrimination, which the framing paper emphasizes, with segregation. People in America continue to experience housing discrimination, which is illegal, and continue to under-report it. As we analyzed in detail in the 2005 book, such discrimination, while inconsistent with public opinion in America, is challenging to detect and enforce against. But the larger and less acknowledged point was and is this: discrimination, whether conscious or unconscious, against particular kinds of consumers is far less important, as a driver of segregation, than is the avoidance of certain neighborhoods or localities by those with the best housing options, especially whites and higher skill, higher income people of color. This "self-steering" behavior has big social and fiscal costs, as scholars of segregation have pointed out for nearly half a century now. But it is not illegal. Moreover, as sociologist Camille Charles argued in her 2005 chapter on attitudes toward the racial make-up of neighborhoods, many of us balance what we think we owe our families with what we think might contribute, however modestly, to a fairer and more just society. And many of us experience these values as frequently in conflict, especially when faced with decision to move somewhere.

Laws against housing discrimination by realtors, lenders or others in the marketplace are important and should be enforced. But doing so would have limited effects on segregation. It is far more important to expand real housing choices, especially for lower income people of color, and to understand how people choose among the options available to them.

Finally, as the framing paper demonstrates, the Joint Center's 2017 symposium encompasses an extraordinarily rich and in-depth update of what I think of as the four enduring debates about segregation: the what (the descriptive patterns or shape of the problem), the why (causes), the so what (consequences), and the now what (solutions). And thanks to big data, mobile broadband, a more visible inequality debate, and other developments, it offers a very contemporary take on what's possible, in theory, when it comes to change. In the language of our 2005 redux, the solutions boil down to "curing" segregation (changing stubborn housing patterns) or "mitigating" it (making the patterns less socially costly, by shifting the relationship between where you live and the risks and resources you encounter). The former centers on relocation and inclusionary development strategies, the latter on reinvestment, connectivity, and access to institutions—sometimes life-changing ones—beyond one's segregated neighborhood.

This body of work and those solutions deserve an equally serious and committed story—a resonant narrative—joined to an advocacy and constituency building effort that's relevant in a changing, polarized, deeply unsettled American body politic. Without that, we seem consigned, in practice, to continue rediscovering segregation and also to continue lamenting that it is just too hard—or worse yet, un-American—to undo.

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Papers from the A Shared Future symposium are available on the JCHS website. 

The Rise of Poverty in Suburban and Outlying Areas

by Elizabeth La Jeunesse
Research Analyst

A key takeaway from our latest State of the Nation’s Housing report is that poverty is both increasing and becoming more concentrated across the country. Moreover, while a third of the poor live in high-density urban neighborhoods, the number of poor people and poor neighborhoods grew particularly rapidly in the “exurbs,” low-density neighborhoods on the fringe of the nation’s metro areas (Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1. The Number of People Living in Poverty Has Increased Most in Suburban and Exurban Communities

Figure 2. Much of the Growth in High-Poverty Neighborhoods Has Been in Suburban and Outlying Areas

According to the report, from 2000 to 2015, the number of people living below the federal poverty line rose by 41 percent, from about 33.8 million to 47.7 million. Additionally, the number of high-poverty neighborhoods (census tracts where the poverty rate is 20 percent or more) rose by 59 percent, and the poor population living in these areas increased by 76 percent to 25.4 million. As a result, 54 percent of the nation’s poor now live in high-poverty neighborhoods, up from 43 percent in 2000.

The growth in high-poverty neighborhoods was widespread, occurring in all but three of the nation’s largest 100 metros (Honolulu, El Paso, and McAllen, TX). Moreover, the rise of poverty was particularly rapid in the exurbs, where the number of high-poverty neighborhoods more than doubled between 2000 and 2015, and the number of poor people living in these neighborhoods grew by 164 percent, rising from 1.5 million in 2000 to 3.9 million in 2015. Such growth presumably was due to the fact that housing generally is less expensive in these areas, but the savings in housing costs are often offset by higher transportation costs and more time spent travelling to work and other activities.

Our new interactive chart shows that these changes were not uniform in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas. To begin with, two-thirds of these metros underwent a rise in concentrated exurban poverty from 2000-2015. Moreover, the magnitude of the increase varied. For example, the number of high-poverty, exurban tracts increased more than tenfold in the Detroit, Greensboro, and Cape Coral, FL metros, and increased by a factor of five or more in 11 other metros, including Atlanta, Denver, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Nashville and Orlando. Other large metros where the number of high-poverty, exurban neighborhoods more than tripled included Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland, St. Louis, and Tampa.

For example, in the Atlanta metro, the number of low-density, high-poverty, exurban tracts rose from only 11 in 2000 to 72 in 2015 (Figure 3). Meanwhile, in the St. Louis metro, there were 28 high-poverty, exurban neighborhoods in 2015, up from 8 such areas just 15 years earlier (Figure 4).

Figure 3. Atlanta

Figure 4. St. Louis

While poverty remains highly concentrated in dense urban areas, several large metros now have unusually large shares of high-poverty, exurban neighborhoods. In the Atlanta, Charlotte, and Nashville metro areas, for example, nearly a quarter or more of all high-poverty neighborhoods are located in low-density, exurban areas. Poverty’s shift to lower-density areas was especially pronounced in the Charlotte area, where 41 percent of high-poverty tracts are now situated in low-density, exurban areas, up from just 15 percent in 2000 (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Charlotte, NC

Moreover, in several smaller metros across the South – such as Columbia, SC; McAllen, TX; Greenville, SC; Jackson, MS, and Knoxville, TN – well over half of all high-poverty neighborhoods are located in low-density, outlying regions (Figure 6).

Figure 6. McAllen, TX 

Use our interactive tool to see the change in high-poverty neighborhoods in the nation’s 100 largest metro areas between 2000 and 2015.

Download Excel files for additional data on high-poverty neighborhoods. (W-1 and W-15)

Download Chapter 3 of our State of theNation’s Housing 2017 report, which contains additional discussions on the growth of poverty and the spread of high-poverty neighborhoods.

Wait... What? Ten Surprising Findings from the 2017 State of the Nation’s Housing Report

by Daniel McCue
Senior Research Associate

Every year, when we release our State of the Nation’s Housing report, we’re asked some variation of the question: “What surprised you in this year’s report?” Given all the time and effort that goes analyzing the data and writing the report, we are so close to it that little surprises us by the time of publication. Nevertheless, here are 10 findings in this year’s report that were new and maybe even a bit surprising:

1. For-sale inventories dropped even lower over the past year.   

For the fourth year in a row, the inventory of homes for sale across the US not only failed to recover, but dropped yet again. At the end of 2016 there were an historically low 1.65 million homes for sale nationwide, which at the current sales rate was just 3.6 months of supply - almost half of the 6.0 months level that is considered a balanced market.

2. Fewer homes were built over the last 10 years than any 10-year period in recent history.

Even with the recent recovery in both single-family and multifamily construction, markets nationwide are still feeling the effects of the deep and extended decline in housing construction. Over the past 10 years, just 9 million new housing units were completed and added to the housing stock. This was the lowest 10-year period on records dating back to the 1970s, and far below the 14 and 15 million units averaged over the 1980s and 1990s.

3. Single-family construction grew at a faster pace than multifamily construction.

The slow recovery in single-family construction picked up its pace in 2016. For the first time since the Great Recession, the rate of growth in single-family construction outpaced multifamily construction.

4. Smaller homes may be coming back.
Behind the growth in single-family construction, and as a new development in 2016, construction of smaller homes is back on the rise. The median square footage of newly completed single-family homes declined slightly, due to increase in construction of smaller-sized homes (less than 1,800 sqft).
 
5. Rental markets are still strong.  

Although there are signs of moderation, the slowdown in multifamily rental markets appears to be limited, so far, to a small number of markets. Indeed, last year, multifamily construction levels were still on the rise in most of the country, rents declined in just 10 of the 100 markets, multifamily loan originations and lending volumes both hit new record highs, and rental vacancy rates were at a 30-year low.

6. Long-term, metro-area home price trends show surprisingly wide variations.

Home prices have rebounded widely across the nation. In 2016, prices were up in 97 of 100 metros, and 41 metros had regained their nominal peak price levels from the mid-2000s. Over the longer period of time, however, the combined impact of the boom and bust has resulted in significant differences in home price appreciation across the country. In some metros (particularly on the coasts) real home prices have grown by 50 percent or more since 2000, while prices in 16 of the top 100 metros (mainly in the Midwest and South) were below 2000 levels, after adjusting for inflation.

7. The 12-year decline in the US homeownership rate may be nearing an end.

Homeownership rates flattened last year and the number of homeowners increased for the first time since 2006, suggesting trends in homeownership may be strengthening. In addition, first-time homebuyers accounted for a higher share of sales in 2016 than the year before. Still, lending remained skewed to highest credit score borrowers.

8. The homeownership gap between whites and African-Americans widened to its largest disparity since WWII.

The post-2004 decline in homeownership has been especially severe for African-Americans and has pushed black homeownership rates to fully 29.7 percentage points lower than that for whites. Comparing census data going back to WWII, the white-black difference in homeownership rates has never been wider.

9. More than half of all poor now live in high-poverty neighborhoods.

Poverty is growing, concentrating, and suburbanizing all at the same time. Overall, the total number of people living in poverty in the US increased by nearly 14 million in 2000-2015. Moreover, 54 percent of the nation’s poor live in high-poverty neighborhoods (those with poverty rates over 20 percent).

10. Poverty is growing across metros and in rural areas.

Poverty has been on the rise throughout cities, suburbs, and rural areas. Indeed, while the number of poor living in high-poverty tracts in dense, urban areas grew by 46 percent between 2000 and 2015, the number of poor living in high-poverty tracts in moderate- and lower density suburban areas more than doubled.

Read the full State of the Nation’s Housing report on our website.

New Report: Number of Older Adults in the US Expected to Surge, Highlighting Need for Accessible Housing and Policy Improvements

Download the Report

By 2035, more than one in five people in the US will be aged 65 and older and one in three households will be headed by someone in that age group, according to our new report, Projections and Implications for Housing a Growing Population: Older Adults 2015-2035, released today. This growth will increase the demand for affordable, accessible housing that is well connected to services beyond what current supply can meet.

As the baby boom generation ages, the US population aged 65 and over is expected to grow from 48 million to 79 million, and the number of households headed by someone over 65 will increase by 66 percent, to nearly 50 million. This growth will increase the demand for housing units with universal design elements such as zero-step entrances, single-floor living, and wide halls and doorways.  However, only 3.5 percent of homes offer all three of these features.

“The housing implications of this surge in the older adult population are many,” says Chris Herbert, managing director of the Joint Center. “and call for innovative approaches to respond to growing need for housing that is affordable, accessible and linked to supportive services that will grow exponentially over the next two decades.”

In the coming years, many older adults will have the financial means to pay for appropriate housing and supportive services that allow them to live longer in their own homes. However, many others will face financial hardships, particularly because their incomes will decline in retirement. Low-income renters are particularly vulnerable, notes the report, which projects that nearly 6.4 million low-income renters will be paying more than 30 percent of their income for housing by 2035. The report adds that 11 million homeowners will be also be in this position by that time. In total, the report estimates, 8.6 million people will be paying more than half their income for housing by 2035. The report also projects that 7.6 million older adults will have incomes that would qualify them for federal rental subsidies by 2035, an increase of 90 percent from 2013. “Today, however, we only serve one-third of those who qualify for assistance,” says Jennifer Molinsky, a senior research associate at the Joint Center and lead author of the report. “Just continuing at this rate—which would be a stretch—would leave 4.9 million people to find affordable housing in the private market.”

The report notes that in many surveys, older adults express a strong desire to live at home for as long as possible. Achieving that goal will require public and private action to support modifications to existing homes, take steps to address the affordability challenges facing both owners and renters, and adapting the health care system to enhance service delivery in the home. There is also a need to expand the range of housing options available to better meet the needs of an aging population and improve options for older adults to remain in their community when their current home is no longer suitable. 

“The implications of our aging US population on the housing industry are unambiguous,” says Lisa Marsh Ryerson, President of AARP Foundation, which provided funding for the report. “It will be imperative, in the coming years, that the housing industry, policymakers, and individuals take action to address the need for housing that will enable millions of older adults in this country to live with security, dignity, and independence.”

Read the full report

Join the conversation on Twitter: #harvardhousingreport

The New Urban Agenda, HABITAT III, and the Celebration of a Multinational Agreement on Cities

by Jessica Jean-Francois
Harvard Graduate
School of Design

A few weeks ago, I was one of the approximately 50,000 people who came to Quito, Ecuador for the third UN-HABITAT conference (HABITAT III). The conference served as a celebration of the adoption of the New Urban Agenda, a multinational agreement that aims to “help to end poverty and hunger in all its forms and dimensions, reduce inequalities, promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, in order to fully harness their vital contribution to sustainable development, improve human health and well-being, as well as foster resilience and protect the environment.”

Excerpt from New Urban Agenda display

Having signed up for the newsletter over a year in advance, I had grown increasingly excited as I read about the research being done in anticipation of HABITAT III and the many meetings and events held to prepare for it as well. It was clear that this would be an incredible event and that I would have a unique opportunity to observe as key actors in city planning and urban policy came together, to hear about new approaches and practices, while also getting to know a new city.

HUD Secretary Julian Castro speaks 

Once there, I had plenty of activities to choose from. Main events included special sessions on public space, urban resilience and municipal finance. There were also networking and side events hosted by government agencies, nonprofit organizations and research institutions. There were roundtable discussions that brought together mayors, trade union leaders, businessmen and women, farmers and other key stakeholders. There were plenary meetings and many more events covering a wide range of topics, all happening simultaneously every day. On top of that, there was a six-hall exhibition zone with over 150 booths showcasing important ideas and activities related to urbanization.

For many people, all of this was overwhelming. Quito was completely transformed as much of the area surrounding the conference center could only be accessed via security checkpoints. Long lines, limited bathrooms and technical issues sometimes frustrated attendees.

Large lines formed at the event

Now that I’ve returned and debriefed with classmates, friends, and others who attended the gathering, I am left with many questions. What were the intended takeaways? What was the point of such a large expensive conference? Who benefited, who lost? Also, could the conference’s goals have been achieved in a better way? While we celebrate that HABITAT III was open and free to all those who wished to attend, people still had to travel to Quito and pay for accommodations, food, and, if they wanted to highlight their work, for exhibition booths that cost $4,000 or more. Moreover, the selection process for hosting a side or networking event seemed arbitrary. While the New Urban Agenda clearly indicated that issues such as energy and transportation, land tenure, safety and security, disaster risk management and inclusion in spatial planning were concerns, particularly for those living in informal settlements and slums, this was not clearly aligned with the schedule of events on informal settlements, which primarily focused on the UN Participatory Slum Upgrading Program (PSUP) and data collection tools.

Despite these questions and concerns, I still believe the conference was valuable. While in Quito, I primarily attended events addressing informal settlements, which was a focus of MIT’s Special Interest Group in Urban Settlement (SIGUS), the group that I traveled with to the conference. I also attended sessions that focused on Small Island Developing States, tourism, economic development and finance to inform my master’s thesis at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Scheduling conflicts and long lines were at times a barrier to my hopes, but even these offered some interesting surprises. The long lines became an unintended networking opportunity and equalizer where people with different backgrounds and positions were able to meet, share ideas and connect. The exhibition halls were a hotbed of activity as people who sought a place to rest often became consumed in unplanned conversations and experiences.

Jessica at MIT's SIGUS booth

That is how I got to know the Slum Dwellers International (SDI). Although I had previously been in contact with the group, on the last day of the conference, I heard an SDI celebration that featured singing and chanting. The participants were celebrating the launch of Know Your City a website featuring data collected by residents of informal settlements. SDI uses the data collection process to identify needs and encourage community-funded solutions. It also shares the data with policy members of their communities in an attempt to prevent evictions and prevent poor, top-down approaches to planning.

As I learned about this grassroots movement and about cases in Liberia, Zambia and South Africa, I thought about the many challenges that will hinder the effective implementation of the New Urban Agenda and the fact that many of the solutions to these barriers are present (but often hidden) in the communities it is supposed to serve. As we struggle to identify ways to make certain areas livable, it’s often forgotten that many people have already been forced to craft solutions in order to survive while only dreaming of gaining access to the resources needed to innovate on a larger scale. I am hopeful that many of the ideas and innovative approaches that were discussed and disseminated in Quito will help city dwellers take even more control of their own futures.

Jessica Jean-Francois, a second-year Master in Urban Planning student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, was a Joint Center student research assistant in 2015-2016. Her trip was funded in part by Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) and the Joint Center for Housing Studies.

When Boundaries Matter: Counties, Census Tracts, and Anti-Poverty Programs

by Sonali Mathur
Research Assistant

Recent discussions about potential federal anti-poverty programs underscore that seemingly mundane choices about geographic units could have important impacts on how available funds are distributed.

In a recent New York Times op-ed, Hillary Clinton asserted that if elected, she would develop an anti-poverty strategy modeled on the “10-20-30” approach put forward by Congressman James Clyburn (D-South Carolina), the number three Democrat in the House.

Initially proposed during the drafting of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, the 10-20-30 approach called for 10 percent of funds of federal programs subject to this plan be directed to persistent poverty counties where at least 20 percent of the population has been living in poverty for 30 years.

While this may have worked for the original intent of appropriately directing the rural development funds, the county based approach may not necessarily work across a wider range of programs and may not be the right approach to address extreme poverty.

While most discussion about the anti-poverty proposal has been focused on the money that would be made available, the geographic level used to allocate funds – be it counties, neighborhoods or something else – will significantly affect where the money would be spent and who would benefit from it.

Most notably, basing the selection criteria at the county level would tend to allocate money mostly to rural parts of the United States. Shown below is the map of persistent poverty counties (defined as any county that has had 20 percent or more of its population living in poverty in the 1990, 2000 and 2010 decennial censuses).

Source: JCHS tabulations of decennial census and American Community Survey 2006-2010 
Note: The exact list of eligible counties may vary based on the data source used. The choice of American Community Survey data (ACS) 2006-2010, ACS2007-2011 or Census bureau’s small area estimates results in the difference.

The county-based approach results in a majority of persistent-poverty areas being rural counties spread across 30 states; (85 percent of these counties are in non-metropolitan areas) and this approach excludes many areas of extreme poverty in inner cities of urbanized areas such as Los Angeles (Los Angeles County), Detroit (Wayne County), Chicago (Cook County), Dallas-Fort Worth (Dallas and Tarrant Counties), Newark (Essex County, New Jersey) and the District of Columbia.

In comparison, when applied at the census tract level, which is a much smaller geography than a county, the 20-30 rule yields a much broader array of urban, suburban, and rural communities of extreme poverty with a broader representation across states. At the census tract level, at least one persistent-poverty tract appears in each of the 50 states and in DC. In all, the tract-level application results in a total of 8,472 persistent-poverty tracts, which together are home to 30.7 million people (ACS 2010-2014). Only about 8.5 of these people are in persistent poverty counties. This implies that the county-level application of the 10-20-30 rule would exclude nearly 22.2 million people who live in persistent-poverty census tracts that are not in persistent-poverty counties.

Click image to launch interactive map. Please note: Maps may take a moment to fully render.

Yet another layer of complexity arises when you consider the many areas where at least 40 percent of the population is in poverty but have not had high poverty rates for the last three decades. These areas include 776 census tracts that are home to 2.8 million people, (ACS 2010-2014) that are not persistent-poverty tracts. Moreover, approximately 10.8 million people live in census tracts where at least 40 percent of the population is in poverty but the county is not considered a persistent-poverty area. Including these areas in anti-poverty efforts is important because numerous studies, including Harvard University’s Equality of Opportunity Project, have shown that concentration of poverty amplifies the adverse effects of poverty, as individuals deal not only with their own poverty but of those around them as well.

In short, the application of the 10-20-30 rule at the county level would exclude the vast majority of poor people who live in urban and suburban census tracts that are in persistent poverty. Additionally, focusing on persistent poverty tracts alone would exclude some areas that currently face concentrated poverty but may not fit the definition of persistent poverty.

It should be noted that Clinton’s op-ed used the term 'communities' instead of 'counties' perhaps signaling that her application of the rule might be at a smaller geography than counties. Although, there have been other reports where she has been quoted to show support for Clyburn’s original formula with the use of the term 'counties', and it also appears that the formula has made its way into several congressional proposals, which makes it imperative to discuss the geography of its application.

Are Renters and Homeowners in Rural Areas Cost-Burdened?

by Sonali Mathur
Research Assistant

As our latest report and interactive map illustrate, housing affordability is one of the biggest challenges faced by owner and renter households in most metro areas across the US. However, maps that use metro areas to display the local-level story miss the fact that cost burdens are also a major concern in non-metro/rural areas and are severely high for millions of low-income rural households. To address this gap in visibility, we created a set of interactive maps (Figure 1) using 2010-2014 American Community Survey (ACS) estimates. In doing so, we found that housing cost burden rates in some rural counties are significant. We also learned that rural counties of the Northeast and west, that are adjacent to high-cost metros, have even higher cost burden rates than those in parts of the Midwest.

 (Click to launch interactive map; may take a moment to load.)

Housing cost burdens are particularly stark for rural renters. Indeed, fully 41 percent of all rural renters are cost-burdened (meaning they spend 30 percent or more of their income on housing), including 21 percent who are severely cost-burdened (spending 50 percent or more of their income on housing). Among owners, 22 percent are cost-burdened including nearly 9 percent who are severely cost-burdened. Overall, nearly 5 million rural households pay more than 30 percent of their monthly income toward housing and more than 2.1 million rural households spend more than half of their income on housing.

And cost burdens have been growing in rural areas (Figure 2). Since 2000, housing costs in rural areas have increased over 5 percent and one in every four rural households is now cost-burdened. Comparing burden rates from 2014 to those from 2000 in the maps above shows the increasing cost burdens in many rural areas over the last decade, including areas in and around the traditional Black Belt counties of the Southeast and areas in the west and Northeast that are contiguous to areas that had high cost burdens in 2000.

Source: JCHS tabulations of US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2010-2014 and census 2000 for all non-metropolitan census tracts. 

Rural affordability issues tend to receive less attention due to a perception that housing costs are lower in rural areas, which is true as compared to metro areas. According to the 2013 American Housing Survey (AHS) the median monthly rent in metro areas is $800, while the median monthly rent in non-metro areas is $530. Monthly owner costs are also fully 43 percent lower in non-metro areas than in metro areas. However, low incomes and poverty are prevalent in rural areas. According to estimates from the American Community Survey, fully 15 percent of all households in non-metro area census tracts earn less than $15,000 annually and nearly 36 percent earn less than $30,000. Poverty is a widespread problem in rural areas, with 18 percent of population living in poverty compared to 15 percent in metro areas.

In addition to poverty and affordability, rural areas face several other major housing challenges. The share of housing stock that would be considered inadequate, as measured by the number of units lacking complete plumbing or a complete kitchen, is higher in non-metro areas. The share of units lacking complete plumbing is 4 percent in non-metro areas, compared to 2 percent nationally.

Among units in non-metro areas that lack complete plumbing facilities, 10.3 percent also have more than one occupant per room (compared to 8.2 percent in metro areas). This suggests that in non-metro areas there is likely to be overcrowding in the same units that lack adequacy. It is probable that the households facing affordability problems are dealing with it alongside other issues.

While it is true that cost burdens are high and a growing problem in most metro areas across the country, it is important to remember that non-metro areas also face increasing housing affordability issues, in addition to other housing-related challenges and should not be forgotten in policy discussions of a comprehensive approach to the escalating housing affordability problem.

What Can Measures of Residual Income Tell Us About Affordability?

Shannon Rieger

Research Assistant

JCHS analysis of American Community Survey data in our recent State of the Nation's Housing indicates that the share of households with housing cost burdens—those paying 30 percent or more of income toward housing—has increased since the turn of the 21st century (Figure 1). Rising cost burdens have hit low-income households especially hard: among households with annual incomes under $15,000, 83.4 percent had housing cost burdens in 2014, with 70 percent facing severe cost burdens—paying at least 50 percent of income toward housing.

This changing distribution of housing cost burdens clearly indicates that housing affordability has become more of a problem for a larger share of households in recent years. However, cost burden measures alone provide limited insight into the extent to which housing costs constrain a household’s resources, capacity to save, and overall financial wellbeing. To answer these questions, we need an additional way to measure housing affordability. This blog post therefore constructs measures of residual income after housing costs using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) to examine the extent to which rising housing cost burdens have eroded households’ ability to afford other basic costs of living during the first years of the 21st century.

Source: JCHS tabulations of 2001 and 2014 1-Year American Community Survey data.

This discussion examines average residual income for consumer units that participated in the Consumer Expenditure Survey between years 2000 and 2013. For simplicity, we use the term “household” to refer to the CES-defined consumer units, which are occasionally smaller than households in cases where financially independent families or roommates live in the same housing unit. Dollars are adjusted for inflation using CPI-U All Items Less Shelter, a deflator neutral to housing cost increases. To account for the introduction of income imputation in 2004, we analyze reported (non-imputed) rather than imputed income data even in years where imputed data is available, and limit our sample to complete income reporters.

Analysis of CES data confirms that rising housing cost burdens are the result of countervailing trends in housing expenditures and incomes (Figure 2). Households in every income quartile spent more on housing in 2013 than in 2000, with households in the bottom income quartile experiencing the steepest increases. For the bottom income quartile, average housing expenditures climbed almost 20 percent over the period. The second quartile saw more moderate but still sizeable increases of just over 10 percent, and the two upper income quartiles each spent an average of 6 percent more on housing in 2013 than in 2000.

While housing expenditures were on the rise between 2000 and 2013 for all income quartiles, real income growth trended in opposite directions during the same period for households at the top and bottom of the income ladder. Analysis of CES data indicates that real average income fell by almost 4 percent for the lowest income quartile, while the highest income quartile saw average income grow by fully 10 percent—more than offsetting concurrent increases in housing expenditures.

Notes: Adjusted to 2013 Dollars using CPI-U All Items Less Shelter. Top and bottom 2.5% of incomes are excluded. Incomes are non-imputed annual incomes for complete reporter consumer units only.
Source: JCHS tabulations of Consumer Expenditure Survey data.

These divergent trends in housing expenditures and incomes have produced a widening residual income inequality gap. For all but the highest income quartile, the average amount of residual income remaining after paying for housing has declined, with households in the lowest income quartile seeing the sharpest declines (Figure 3). The lowest-income households already had very little monthly residual income in 2000 ($575 per month), yet by 2013, residual income had fallen even farther, to just $423 per month—a decline of over 26 percent in real terms. As these figures show, between 2000 and 2013 all but the highest income households became less able to afford basic costs of living after paying for housing.

Figure 3: Average Monthly Residual Income after Housing, 2013 Dollars

	2000	2013	Percent Change
Lowest Quartile	$575	$423	-26.4
Second Quartile	$1,879	$1,809	-3.7
Third Quartile	$3,980	$3,958	-0.6
Fourth Quartile	$8,017	$8,886	+10.8

Notes: Adjusted to 2013 Dollars using CPI-U All Items Less Shelter. Top and bottom 2.5% of incomes are excluded. Incomes are non-imputed annual incomes for complete reporter consumer units only.
Source: JCHS tabulations of Consumer Expenditure Survey data

The hardships associated with housing cost increases may be particularly severe for low-income seniors, single parents, individuals with disabilities, and other households with fixed incomes or necessary expenditures on healthcare, childcare, or other basic needs. For example, analysis of CES data indicates that in 2013, while a household in the first income quartile headed by an individual under the age of 65 paid an average of $166 per month in healthcare costs, a senior-headed household in the first quartile paid more than one and a half times that, averaging $275 per month. After accounting for housing costs, a senior household in the first income quartile had just $519 left to finance all other costs of living—meaning that in 2013, the average low-income senior household paid more than half their residual income toward healthcare. As these figures illustrate, rising housing costs do not carry similar consequences for all households. Instead, households with the least cushion in their budgets are the most vulnerable to increases in the cost of housing.

The use of residual income measures highlights the implications of rising housing costs for household budgets, shedding light on the extent to which rising housing costs have exacerbated the consequences of growing income inequality. As the figures above show, income growth stagnated or declined for all but the highest income households between 2000 and 2013. At the same time, households with the lowest incomes experienced the largest percentage change in their housing costs, compounding the effects of the income trends. The upshot is that lower-income households have become less able to afford not only housing, but also all other non-housing costs of living since the turn of the 21st century.