Urban Affairs
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Participatory Budgeting for a Stronger City
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Budgets are the new battlegrounds. While cities debate how to spend unprecedented amounts of federal relief funds and activists demand reallocation of police budgets to social services, decisions about how to allocate public dollars are drawing increased public scrutiny. It’s often said that budgets are moral documents that display a…
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The Connection of Sanctuary Cities and Crime
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In the 1980s, churches across the United States sought to provide shelter for refugees fleeing violence in El Salvador and Guatemala. The U.S. supported the regimes of these countries, and it did not want to provide political asylum to their refugees. Nevertheless, religious communities offered them protection in open defiance…
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Housing and Opportunity: Impacts of Chicago’s Public Housing Demolition
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Chicago’s history of low-income housing policy is complex. The Chicago Housing Authority used to manage 17 large housing projects for low-income residents, but during the 1990s, due to high crime, poverty, drug use, and corruption and mismanagement in the projects, plans were made to demolish them. By 2011, all of…
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New Evidence on the Effectiveness of Early Interventions for Children With Lead Poisoning
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Early childhood lead poisoning has been linked to detrimental effects on cognition, academic performance, IQ, high school graduation, and even adult earnings. In many countries, laws prohibiting the use of leaded gasoline have reduced lead exposure, but many children continue to be exposed to lead from deteriorating paint in older…
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Have Home, Won’t Travel: How Housing Values Impact Labor Mobility
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The terms “economic mobility” and “social mobility” are used figuratively to describe ascending the wealth ladder, usually by accruing income. But such mobility can take on a more literal connotation: if a better paying job is across the country it might be worth moving. Anything that restricts a person’s ability…
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Separate and Suffering: The Damaging Effects of Residential Segregation on Metropolitan Economies
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This piece, first published on January 29, 2014, is being republished as part of the Chicago Policy Review‘s 20th Anniversary Series. Please visit us here to learn more about the series from our Executive Editors. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, which prohibited housing discrimination and put an end to one of the last…
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District of Change: Gentrification and Demographic Trends in Washington, D.C.
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This piece, first published on July 23, 2014, is being republished as part of the Chicago Policy Review‘s 20th Anniversary Series. Please visit us here to learn more about the series from our Executive Editors. No discussion on urban revitalization is complete without addressing the issue of gentrification. This byproduct of redevelopment has proven to be…
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Breaking the Cycle of Urban Poverty with Deanna Hallagan and LaToya Winters
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In a candid conversation at Marillac House in East Garfield Park, Deanna Hallagan and LaToya Winters advocate for the importance of outliers in breaking the cycle of poverty on Chicago’s West Side.
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Entrepreneurship: The Modern Day Crime-Stopper
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A study finds that the growth of African-American-owned businesses in urban communities plays a role in decreasing the rate of youth violent crime.
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Citizenship: An Urban Asset
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Researchers at the Urban Institute find compelling economic benefits of naturalization for eligible immigrants and the cities in which they live.
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Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Understanding Resistance to Neighborhood Densification
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New research reveals that increased diverse and unknown social interactions are the main causes of resistance to neighborhood densification among residents of urban areas.