Integrating Inequality: Mixed-Income Developments & Marginalized Communities

• In Event: Desplazos Urbanos: Physical and Cultural Dislocations, Shifting Inequalities, and Claims to the City

Abstract

Across the United States at both the national and local scales, mixed-income developments are being touted as a much needed paradigm shift for urban housing crises. Mixed-income developments--buildings with blocks of units aimed at different socio-economic groups--stand in contrast to the pervasive residential and racial segregation that constitute many major cities, and are seen as a remedy to the concentration of poverty, and Latino poverty in particular, thesis that aims to explain urban inequality. Mixed income developments have accordingly been featured prominently in both state and private urban housing initiatives in recent years, from the nationally implemented HOPE VI (now Choice Neighborhoods), to local proposals in New York City, like the New York City Housing Authority's 'Infill Plan', and the city's inclusionary zoning affordable housing provisions. Using New York City, and the case of a public housing community largely inhabited by Latinos, as a case study, this paper argues that the liberal integrationist values of mixed-income developments only serve the policies' production of more racial and economic inequality. I argue that these mixed-income projects are often enacted to facilitate the privatization of public housing, expand gentrification, and physically and culturally displace marginalized low-income communities of color.

Author

• James Rodriguez, New York University