Housing Policy and Vulnerable Families in The Inner City

This book provides insights in how the lack of coherent social policy leads to the displacement of vulnerable low-income families in inner-city neighborhoods facing gentrification. First, it makes a case for how social policy by its racist setup has failed vulnerable families in the history of U.S. public housing. Second, it shows that today’s public housing transformation puts the same disadvantaged socio-economic clientele at risk, while the neighborhoods they call their homes are taken over by gentrification. It raises the powerful argument that the continuing privatization of Housing Authorities in the U.S. will likely lead to greater income diversity in formerly neglected neighborhoods, but it will happen at the expense of vulnerable families being displaced and resegregated further outside the city, if no regulatory planning measures for their protection are initiated by the government. By providing a solid empirical portrait of public housing in New York City’s Harlem, this book provides a great resource to students, academics and planners interested in gentrification with specific concern for race and class.