Critical Urban Studies: New Directions

9. Why Do We Want Mixed-Income Housing and Neighborhoods?

9 Why Do We Want Mixed-Income Housing and Neighborhoods? James DeFilippis and Jim Fraser “Please, would you tell me,” said Alice, a little timidly, . . . “why your cat grins like that?” “It’s a Cheshire cat,” said the Duchess, “and that’s why.” —Lewis Carroll Whenever there is widespread agreement or consensus that a certain policy, or set of related policies, should be pursued and enacted, it becomes necessary to step back and ask, why? This is because once widespread agreement occurs, the theoretical premises that underlay the policies become lost—assumed away as the policy goals become self-evidently “good.” But the “Why?” questions do not cease to be important; they are just asked less frequently. Why, that is, should we pursue the policies in question? What understandings of the current state of affairs and the potential change to them (after the policies are implemented) are required for us to think we should enact the policies? In the past fifteen years there has emerged a consensus in the fields of urban studies and urban policy that mixed-income housing and neighborhoods (MI HN) are desirable. This consensus, which sits comfortably alongside its sibling paradigm of dispersal (see Goetz and Chapple Chapter 10, this volume), is deeply held among mainstream policy analysts, academics , and policymakers in Washington. When Henry Cisneros, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the first Clinton Administration used to say, “the most serious problem we have in America today is the concentrations of our very poorest populations in specific neighborhoods” (quoted in Ramos 1994, 12), he was simply stating what has become “common sense” in urban studies. It is also, as is discussed here, an understanding rooted in theories of urban political economy that are themselves virtually paradigmatic in the field of urban studies. 135 136 James DeFilippis and Jim Fraser In this chapter we discuss the recent sets of policies surrounding MI HN. We do not do so, however, with the goal of assessing particular policies or their implementation. Instead, we take a few steps back and we question the premises of these policies. We do so because we have consistently found ourselves attracted to the ideal, in theory, of MI HN—but we remain frustrated by the reality. This contradiction could be handled in different ways. We could, for instance, stand behind the veil of “imperfect practice,” as so many have done. Instead, however, we ask if maybe the recurring failure in practice is not simply a result of imperfect practice, but rather a result of flawed theoretical foundations. In short, we think that MI HN is being pursued for the wrong theoretical and normative reasons. And since they are being advocated for the wrong reasons, we should not be surprised when the policies fail to make our cities better places in which to live and work (which, it has to be said, is the measure by which all urban policies should be evaluated and discussed). As they currently exist, mixed-income housing policies are largely based on the (hegemonic) mantra that low-income people themselves are the problem, and that a benevolent gentry needs to colonize their home space in order to create the conditions necessary to help the poor “bootstrap” themselves into a better socioeconomic position. The chapter proceeds in several steps. It begins with a discussion of the growth of MI HN, the causes of that growth, and the reasons for its popularity among mainstream policy analysts. It then discusses the policies that emerge from these justifications, and the problems associated with them—problems, that is, if the goal is something like social justice in our housing policies and in our neighborhoods. We argue that the problems that are evident in the policies are rooted in the theories behind them, and thus perfecting practice will still lead to unjust outcomes. From there, we explore alternative reasons for supporting MI HN—alternatives rooted in the history of urban social theory, and with explicit or implicit goals of making cities more just. We end with a preliminary discussion of what kinds of policies would follow from those theoretical starting points. Why Do Policymakers Like MI HN? Although the reasons for promoting MI HN vary slightly in their content, they inevitably come back to the issue of helping the poor by having them live in proximity to the rich (or at least the middle class). Even the most thoughtful version of this, by Mark Joseph and his colleagues...