The proposed research seeks to introduce new understandings of the specific issue of recovery houses—particularly in reference to the ways in which recovery house networks provide affordable housing alternatives; strengthen communities; prevent homelessness; and meet the needs of persons suffering from chemical dependency. (More)

In the first paper of this dissertation, I use the panel Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and a national panel of local-level fiscal data to test a lifecycle variant of the Tiebout model. I test whether moves by empty-nest households—presumed to be out of fiscal equilibrium—yield fiscal realignments in the expected direction. (More)

Racial segregation in housing is a familiar feature of the urban landscape and continues to play a key role in race relations, urban politics, and economic and educational inequality. Past investigations of residential segregation have typically focused on Black-White dichotomies that exclude rapidly growing Latino and Asian metropolitan populations. Moreover, most urban segregation research examines broader metropolitan areas but fails to look at how community (that is, city and suburb) differences within these areas also contribute to overall neighborhood segregation. (More)

In the mid 1990s, Chicago embarked on the most ambitious urban planning experiment of its kind: The demolition of troubled Chicago Housing Authority (public housing) projects, and their transformation into smaller-scaled, mixed-income, private neighborhood developments called "new communities." Launched as a model for national public housing reform, Chicago’s controversial experiment has more recently drawn criticism for its considerable residential displacements and shortsighted expectations about the salutary effects of mixed-income neighborhood life. (More)

This study uses Providence, Rhode Island, and its surrounding metropolitan communities as a case study to examine how federal housing policy is implemented at the local level. This work contributes to a new body of urban scholarship that analyzes housing policy as part of a state-building process. Such scholarship explores the development of 20th century federal housing policies that resulted in our current two-tiered system of direct and indirect aid that disproportionately has benefited the White non-poor through mortgages, tax breaks, and infrastructure development programs. (More)

For my dissertation, I am exploring the various conceptions of and conflicts over a broad range of urban policies and practices that involved not only politicians, business leaders, and planners in the 1940s and early 1950s, but also engaged union leaders, working men and women, members of women's civic organizations, civil rights activist, and others who formed a series of grass-roots coalitions (however fragile and changing) in this time period. (More)