My research seeks to illuminate the connection between race, location, and policy to explain and quantify the differences in the outcomes for Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) applicants. While the vast majority of research on vouchers and race has focused on either differences in locational outcomes or the "success rates" of groups attempting to utilize a voucher, comparatively little research has been done on outcomes prior to receiving a voucher. Studies on locational attainment and success rates are important; however, success or failure in using a voucher only captures a small part of an interrelated temporal process that includes application, voucher issuance, and, if successful, length of stay in program. Although all parts of the process are conceptually distinct, the outcomes at each stage converge into a single measurable effect: applicant wait time. Consequently, applicant wait time serves as a focal point for this research. Thus, observed racial disparities in average wait time among voucher applicants are explained though the critical intersections among local application rates, wait line dropout, success rates, and attrition. (More)

This dissertation explores family homelessness and shelter policy in Westchester County, New York. (More)

This proposed dissertation is a comparative empirical study of the impact of state EZ policies on firms' location and production decisions. (More)

Since the late 1990s, neighborhood housing market typologies (NHMTs) have become a popular policy tool used by cities to evaluate neighborhood housing markets. NHMTs support place-based interventions, and are used to guide municipal investments as cities target resources based on neighborhood conditions. The assumption is that the effectiveness of local investment strategies to trigger neighborhood change is linked to existing neighborhood conditions. However, this assumption has not been tested explicitly in terms of neighborhood housing markets. This study examines the following key question: does the impact of public investments on nearby home sale prices vary across neighborhood housing markets? (More)

This dissertation will examine the HOPE VI sites in various cities of Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, and Washington, D.C., to see if these sites influence housing prices in their surrounding communities. (More)

The purpose of this research is to understand the relationship between neighborhood revitalization planning and social capital, and the impact of those relationships on residents’ readiness for transformation of the community into a neighborhood of Choice. Specifically, this research aims to identify how Shreveport, Louisiana’s Choice Neighborhood planning initiative will impact the civic economy and perceptions of social capital in the Allendale/Ledbetter Heights neighborhoods. (More)

Immigrant enclaves used to be portrayed as poor and isolated but now are often seen as poor and close-knit. Using a networks framework to assess these portrayals of immigrant relations, this dissertation compares the number and composition of strong social ties of immigrants to those of the native born in Boston and Los Angeles. (More)

Although this study is based on correlational data, and no casual inferences can be drawn, this work takes an important step of providing empirical evidence to suggest a systematic link between certain aspects of resident appropriation and positive neighborhood outcomes. This work thus contributes to research on environment-behavior relations by providing some support for an important relationship posited by DS theory. Implications for DS theory and for public housing policy are discussed. (More)

How do impact fees affect the price of starter homes in comparison to larger homes? What effect, if any, do impact fees have on the supply of new homes of different sizes that get built within urban housing markets? Do impact fees disproportionately burden lower income households and lead to increased racial segregation? These questions are of critical importance as impact fee use across the United States has increased rapidly over the past three decades. (More)

While the nation's diversity is undoubtedly growing, local-level diversity is still rarely sustained. Much less is known about communities whose integration has been steady than about communities that remain segregated. Examining these communities and their active residents has the potential to address questions about the sustainability of diversity in these communities. Further, examining how active residents in these communities talk and think about race has the potential to expand what is known about color-blind and diversity discourses and how they are concretely applied in local settings. In this project, I examine 3 of the nation's 14 stably diverse communities, seen through the lens of their most active residents. I conducted 41 qualitative interviews with residents of the adjoining Rogers Park, Edgewater, and Uptown on Chicago's Northeast Side, asking open-ended questions about their housing history, history of neighborhood involvement, and any relevant community issues that emerged as important to them along the way. (More)