Lusk Perspectives
Rebuilding Public Housing, Reshaping Neighborhoods
Redeveloping public housing can improve surrounding neighborhoods, but those benefits are not always shared equally. Lizhong Liu (RAND) joins Richard K. Green (USC Lusk Center for Real Estate) to discuss how housing shapes access to opportunity and how redevelopment can extend that opportunity beyond the public housing site itself. Drawing on national research and examples including Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes and Los Angeles' Jordan Downs, Liu highlights measurable neighborhood gains alongside the high costs, displacement, and other difficult tradeoffs that can come with redevelopment. Highlights include: How public housing deteriorated in the US and how the HOPE VI program sought to improve both the properties and their surrounding neighborhoods Evidence that HOPE VI neighborhoods experienced increases in average resident income, housing value, and rents Why some redevelopment projects can cost millions of dollars per unit and who defines what's "worth it" The displacement problem: fewer than 30% of original residents typically returned after redevelopment, a shortcoming the newer Choice Neighborhoods Initiative is designed to address More: https://lusk.usc.edu/perspectives
