"One of the sadly unresolved tragedies of American life is the continuing racial segregation in public housing, which in turn generates unequal access to quality education, good-paying jobs, and life-enhancing opportunities. Our nation’s public housing policies have undoubtedly contributed to the virulence of racial segregation and discrimination. But those policies can be changed. Turner, Popkin, and Rawlings’s rigorous analysis of failures in these policies lends credibility to their ideas for transforming public housing and gives hope to achieving a precious goal—meaningful integration."
Henry Cisneros, Executive Chairman, CityView
"Over the past 15 years, federal policy and local actions have helped eliminate the worst of our nation’s public housing. This timely book brings together the multiple perspectives needed to inform strategies for the remaining housing stock, which concentrates families in very poor, segregated neighborhoods. By highlighting the importance of race in the history of public housing and in policy outcomes, the essays in this book should help policymakers design more effective future approaches."
Barbara Sard, Director of Housing Policy, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
"This important volume steers clear of pessimism about some of the nation’s most entrenched social problems. Yet the authors—and the array of leading practitioners and scholars they have assembled to comment—do not shy away from the barriers that confront change. Beyond the fresh analysis of transformation in America’s vital and widely misunderstood public housing program, the book offers insightful commentary on the broader dynamics of segregation, as well as a compelling and practical road map for reform."
Xavier de Souza Briggs, author of Democracy as Problem Solving and editor of The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America
For nearly a half century, the "vertical ghettos" created by public housing policy fostered unprecedented levels of social isolation among the urban African American poor. Can we heal this deep wound with policies that address class segregation while turning a blind eye to race? This volume provides a penetrating and provocative look at a question of critical policy importance for the U.S. in the 21st century.
Kathryn Edin, Professor of Public Policy and Management, John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Coauthor, Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage
