What is the Role of Housing Policy? Considering Free Choice and Social Science Evidence.

I am pleased to have the chance to respond to David Imbroscio’s critique of urban policy. He gives the readers of the Journal of Urban Affairs a chance to think about the significance of communities we often devalue and the potential costs of urban policy that favors residential mobility—specifically extra-urban “moves to opportunity.” To be clear, however, he does this by implying a futuristic thought experiment that assumes the researchers who study residential mobility programs, the mobility paradigm (MP), have somehow gotten control of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and turned it inside out. In the face of this research hegemony, he advocates that we return to a placemaking paradigm (PP) that focuses on community building and bringing resources to urban neighborhoods, instead of bringing families to neighborhoods with resources. I am glad we get to talk honestly about urban policies, as we clearly have not gotten it right yet. However, I am afraid that Imbroscio’s paper is part of an emerging literature that has the potential to do more harm than good by distracting us with research caricatures and a false dichotomy between policies that could be mutually beneficial. I must preface this commentary by saying that I have been implicated as part of the MP, and as such, it might be difficult to comment on Imbroscio’s paper without sounding like part of the MP.