21 June 2008

Hope VI and Crime Wave

Hope VI was/is a HUD program that did things like demolish housing projects in the West End. As residents were given vouchers, they moved to other neighborhoods (like Westwood). According to this article in the Atlantic, this deconcentration effort has led to a sprawling crime wave.

..they .. merged his computer map of crime patterns with (her) map of Section8 rentals. ... the match was near-perfect. On the merged map, dense violent-crime areas are shaded dark blue, and Section8 addresses are represented by little red dots. All of the dark-blue areas are covered in little red dots, like bursts of gunfire. The rest of the city has almost no dots.

Betts remembers her discomfort as she looked at the map. The couple had been musing about the connection for months, but they were amazed—and deflated—to see how perfectly the two data sets fit together. She knew right away that this would be a “hard thing to say or write.”

There is a lot more in the article, including video. If you are interested in housing programs and urban crime, this is a must read article.

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous22/6/08 10:11 AM

    Its important to note that Hope VI is not a relocation program, but a plan to rebuild the modern project based public housing into mixed income communities. Decentralization is partly a by-product of Hope VI, but not its intent.

    City West is Cincinnati's Hope VI development.

    Wikipedia's description is relatively informative of the theory and criticisms of Hope VI.

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  2. CityKin22/6/08 10:49 PM

    Thanks that Wikipedia page gave me some basics that I didn't know about at all.

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  3. Dan23/6/08 2:14 PM

    I read that article in the Atlantic at the gym. I thought it was a great read.

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  4. Anonymous23/6/08 3:42 PM

    The Urban Institute's evaluation of the Hope VI program is largely positive although it notes that less new housing is created after the old housing has been torn down and that often the former residents are not the main beneficiaries of the newer housing (which I suspect is born out at CityWest).

    http://www.urban.org/publications/411002.html

    My understanding is that there will be no Hope VII, that funding for the program has been eliminated.

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  5. Anonymous23/6/08 4:13 PM

    The article is amazing. Any politician that wants my vote better acknowledge the challenges involved and address them. Is it right to poison an entire city for the presumed "benefit" of a small group of people who don't appreciate your "help"?

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