Building Segregation: The Long-Run Neighborhood Effects of American Public Housing

• In Event: Housing and Human Capital

Abstract

This paper studies the long-term neighborhood effects of the construction of mid-century American public housing. I construct a new national dataset tracking the locations, completion dates, and characteristics of over 1 million public housing units built between 1935 and 1973, which I link to neighborhood-level data from 1930 to 2010. I document that public housing projects were systematically targeted towards poorer, more populated neighborhoods with higher Black population shares, reflecting the program's slum clearing goals and racialized site selection politics. Using a stacked matched difference-in-differences design, I find that public housing construction caused large, persistent increases in Black population shares and substantial declines in neighborhood median incomes and rents. These effects grow over time, with median incomes falling by roughly 15 percent and Black population shares rising by approximately 5 percentage points three decades after construction. Geographic spillovers to nearby neighborhoods were modest, characterized by small increases in Black population shares driven primarily by white population decline rather than Black population inflows, and small but statistically significant declines in median incomes. I find evidence consistent with neighborhood tipping: neighborhoods with initially moderate Black shares experienced substantial white population outflows following public housing construction, while those with very low or very high initial Black shares showed more muted demographic responses. Finally, linking to intergenerational mobility data, I show that children from low-income families who grew up in public housing neighborhoods experienced significantly lower rates of upward mobility and higher rates of incarceration than those in comparable control areas. These mobility penalties partially persist even after controlling for observable neighborhood characteristics, suggesting that public housing shaped long-run opportunity through channels beyond simply altering neighborhood composition. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that mid-century public housing, despite intentions of neighborhood revitalization, reinforced existing patterns of racial and economic segregation with lasting consequences for economic opportunity.

Author

• Beau Bressler, Yale University
  Presenting Author