Author: Rachel Meltzer

Year of DDRG Award: 2008

Grantee University: New York University

Dissertation Title: Public Goods, Private Solutions: Essays on Private Governments and the Supplementation of Public Services

Current Employment: Assistant Professor, Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy, The New School

Research Subject Areas: Housing and Economic Development Policies, Urban Economics

Biography:
Rachel Meltzer's research centers on issues related to housing and economic development policies, and how public and private investments in these areas affect individuals, neighborhoods, and cities. Her current work concentrates on the socioeconomic and political causes and effects of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and Homeowners Associations (HOAs). She has also conducted research on Inclusionary Zoning, an alternative to traditional methods of providing affordable housing, including its impact on local housing markets and the political economy behind the adoption of such policies. Another arm of her research has focused on neighborhood change, and she is currently embarking on a project that analyzes change in retail and commercial services in neighborhoods undergoing economic and racial transitions.

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• Creating Community Connections, Sociocultural Constructionism, and an Asset-Based Approach to Community Technology and Community Building
• Do Geographically Targeted Development Incentives Revitalize Communities? Evidence From the State Enterprise Zone Programs
• Green Visions for Brownfields: Policy Coalitions for Urban Redevelopment
• Isolation and the Enclave: The Presence and Variety of Strong Ties Among Immigrants
• Positive Homeownership Attitudes, Homeownership Behavior, and Neighborhood Ties in Poor Urban Neighborhoods
• Pulpits and Policy: The Politics of Black Church-Based Community Development in New York City, 1980-2000
• The Brownfields Reality Check: A Study of Land Value and the Effects of Brownfields on the Locations of Section 8 Housing
• Federal Funding and Community Development: An Evaluation of the Strategic Uses of Small Cities Community Development Block Grants in Upstate New York
• Breaking Down Barriers to Community Life: Social Contact, Local Travel, and Community Sentiment and Cohesion in Suburban Neighborhoods
• Faith/Community-Based Organizations and the Political Process Model: Social Mobilization as an Explanation for Member Participation in Community Building
• Learning Places: Community Schools in Community Development
• Intraurban Mobility Patterns of Mexican Immigrants in Emerging Gateways
• "We Did It for the Kids," Housing Policies, Race, and Class: An Ethnographic Case Study of a Resident Council in a Public Housing Neighborhood
• Urban Mosaics: Multiracial Diversity and Segregation in the American Metropolis
• Ways of Contending: Community Organizing and Development in Neighborhood Context
• Valuing Property: Eminent Domain for Urban Redevelopment, Philadelphia 1992-2007
• Fallacies of the American Welfare State: The Enduring Response of Community- and Faith-Based Organizations—Homeless Shelters and Relief Services in New York City During the 1920s and 1990s
• Matching University Resources to Community Needs: Case Studies of University-Community Partnerships
• Documenting the Community Capacity Building Benefits of Public Participation in Community Design and Planning and Developing Indicators of Community Capacity
• New Models for Future Retirement: A Study of College/University Linked Retirement Communities
• Ownership and Outcomes: Investigating Nonprofit and For-Profit Subsidized Housing Developers
• Race, Concentrated Poverty, and Policy: Empowerment Zones in Distressed Urban Areas
• Faith-Based Versus Secular Approaches to Community Development in African-American Communities: The Case of Los Angeles
• Creating Neighborhoods: Physical Environment, Resident Involvement, and Crime at a Revitalized Housing Project
• Racial and Ethnic Integration in U.S. Metropolitan Neighborhoods: Patterns, Complexities, and Consequences
• Urbanism in Pieces: Publics and Power in Urban Development
• Live and Let Live: Negotiating Difference in a Diverse Urban Neighborhood
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• Active Members of Diverse Communities: Race and the Doing of Diversity
• The Ties That Bind: The Role of Place in Racial Identity Formation, Social Cohesion, Accord, and Discord in Two Historic, Black-Gentrifying Atlanta Neighborhoods
• Local Government Innovation Creating Aging-Friendly Communities: A Strategy for Aging in Place
• Public Goods, Private Solutions: Essays on Private Governments and the Supplementation of Public Services
• Community Social Organization and the Integration of Affordable Housing Residents in a Suburban New Jersey Community
• Immigrant and Minority Entrepreneurship in Federal Community Development Programs
• Suburban Gentrification: Residential Redevelopment and Neighborhood Change, A Case Study of the Inner-Ring Suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, 2000-2010
• Gentrification and Healthy Habitats in New York City: 1990 to Present
• Processes of Institutional Change in Urban Environmental Policy
• Contested Renewal: The Rebuilding of the South Bronx
• Immigration Integration in Two Chicago Suburbs: Barriers and Strategies Among the Mexican Second Generation
• Assessing the Role of Universities as Place-Based Institutions: Developing Uniform Metrics of Engagement
• The Impacts Abandoned Properties Impose Upon Neighborhoods
• In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: Neighborhood Relations in a College Town
• Investing in the Civic Economy: Social Capital and Choice Neighborhoods
• Examining Social Relations in Mixed-Income Communities: An Examination of Individual Processes and Social Mechanisms that Shape Neighbor Interaction