The Dream Revisited: Contemporary Debates About Housing, Segregation, and Opportunity

A half century after the Fair Housing Act, despite ongoing transformations of the geography of privilege and poverty, residential segregation by race and income continues to shape urban and suburban neighborhoods in the United States. Why do people live where they do? What explains segregation's persistence? And why is addressing segregation so complicated? The Dream Revisited brings together a range of expert viewpoints on the causes and consequences of the nation's separate and unequal living patterns. Leading scholars and practitioners, including civil rights advocates, affordable housing developers, elected officials, and fair housing lawyers, discuss the nature of and policy responses to residential segregation. Essays scrutinize the factors that sustain segregation, including persistent barriers to mobility and complex neighborhood preferences, and its consequences from health to home finance and from policing to politics. They debate how actively and in what ways the government should intervene in housing markets to foster integration. The book features timely analyses of issues such as school integration, mixed income housing, and responses to gentrification from a diversity of viewpoints. A probing examination of a deeply rooted problem, The Dream Revisited offers pressing insights into the changing face of urban inequality.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: The Meaning of Segregation Introduction Discussion 1: Why Integration? Discussion 2: Comparative Perspectives on Segregation Discussion 3: Neighborhood Income Segregation Discussion 4: Suburban Poverty and Segregation Discussion 5: The Relationship Between Residential and School Segregation Part II: Causes of Contemporary Racial Segregation Introduction Discussion 6: Ending Segregation: Our Progress Today Discussion 7: The Stubborn Persistence of Racial Segregation Discussion 8: Implicit Bias and Segregation Part III: Consequences of Segregation Introduction Discussion 9: Explaining Ferguson Through Place and Race Discussion 10: Segregation and Law Enforcement Discussion 11: Segregation and Health Discussion 12: Segregation and the Financial Crisis Discussion 13: Segregation and Politics Part IV: Policy Implications Introduction Discussion 14: The Future of the Fair Housing Act Discussion 15: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Discussion 16: Balancing Investments in People and Place Discussion 17: Addressing Neighborhood Disinvestment Discussion 18: Place-Based Affirmative Action Discussion 19: Selecting Neighborhoods for Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Developments Discussion 20: Public Housing and Deconcentrating Poverty Discussion 21: Creating Mixed-Income Housing Through Inclusionary Zoning Discussion 22: Neighborhoods, Opportunities, and the Housing Choice Voucher Program Discussion 23: Making Vouchers More Mobile Discussion 24: Gentrification and the Promise of Integration Discussion 25: Community Preferences and Fair Housing Conclusion Contributors Index

About the Author :
Ingrid Gould Ellen is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a Faculty Director of the NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. She is the author of Sharing America’s Neighborhoods: The Prospects for Stable Racial Integration (2000) and coeditor of How to House the Homeless (2010). Justin Peter Steil is the Class of 1942 Assistant Professor of Law and Urban Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the coeditor of Searching for the Just City: Debates in Urban Theory and Practice (2009).

Review :
[The Dream Revisited] is probably the most intelligent and thoughtful read on segregation in recent years. Despite highlighting so many debates and differences, I consider it a hopeful and useful policy tool. This well-organized book makes a significant contribution to recent research on housing segregation in the US. This book would be a great supplementary text for courses in planning, housing, sociology or geography. Not only does the book help us to understand the complexities of segregation and ways to deal with it, but just as important, Ellen and Steil show us how much we can learn from conversations with people with different viewpoints. Likely to be the leading reference point for discussion and action for years to come, this must-read volume offers pointed debate among a who’s who of scholars and practitioners. One would need a small library to cover so much critical terrain half as well. More importantly, the dozens of diverse contributors are willing to squarely face fundamental questions about whether racial and economic integration is, in fact, worthwhile for America and, if so, how it can be achieved at a time of dramatic social and technological change. The deep engagement and spirited debate found in The Dream Revisited make it a must-read for political leaders, housing advocates, and researchers seeking to understand the causes and consequences of segregation in America. Segregation anchors our nation’s schools, neighborhoods, and families in inequality. Through a wide range of perspectives penned by top scholars, Ellen and Steil’s volume helps us understand not only how we are divided but how we might finally address one of America’s most vexing problems. Fifty-five years since Martin Luther King’s speech, racial and economic segregation persist. Why? The Dream Revisited is a compelling compilation of the most up-to-date research and policy debate on the most crucial question of our day: how to produce racial and economic equality. It is both a wonderful introduction to these intersecting fields and a great resource for scholars and students of these topics.