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Item Open Access A New Approach to Housing Choice Voucher Implementation in Durham, North Carolina(2020-04-08)The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program is the largest federal rental housing program in the United States, providing housing subsidies for over 2.2 million low-income households at an annual cost of approximately $18.4 billion. However, even with substantial funding and bipartisan support, the HCV program does not do an optimal job at meeting its potential to give low-income households the opportunity to move into high-opportunity neighborhoods. While there is some existing evidence around creative approaches to improve HCV implementation in larger cities across the country, there is little research around implementation in midsized, southern cities like Durham, North Carolina. The following case study evaluates strategies implemented by housing authorities in Durham, North Carolina; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Richmond, Virginia. It also looks at two HCV implementation strategies that are growing in popularity across the country: source-of- income laws and Small Area Fair Market Rent (SAFMR). Altogether, the case study evaluation highlights demand-side and supply-side innovations and evaluates them against a set of criteria to determine whether the Durham Housing Authority (DHA) should consider implementation. This analysis gives way to a set of near-term and long-term recommendations. In the near-term, I recommend that the DHA... • Apply for Moving to Work (MTW) designation. This has been critical in enabling Charlotte’s housing authority, INLIVIAN, to test out new approaches to HCV implementation, many of which have been successful. In Durham, it is likely to have a similar impact. • Extend the time frame to find rental units. DHA should extend the time to find a unit to at least 120 days, a time frame that would make it more feasible for HCV recipients to find adequate units. This time frame is comparable to what is in practice in both Charlotte and Richmond. • Seek opportunities for local partnerships. Funding will be a significant barrier to implementing creative approaches to HCV administration. As such, DHA should seek out nonprofit partners who can support landlord recruitment efforts, serve as a conduit between landlords and tenants, and provide clear and consistent communication to both landlords and tenants. • Streamline landlord processes. DHA should seek out ways in which it can ease bureaucratic burdens for landlords and develop actionable solutions to implement these changes. This will reduce disincentives in the HCV program for landlord participation and will help increase the supply of landlords willing to rent to HCV recipients. In the long-term, I recommend that the DHA... • Adopt Small Area Fair Market Rents (SAFMRs). SAFMRs are growing in popularity across the country. As Durham continues to grow and housing prices continue to rise, SAFMRs have the potential to provide all voucher families with access to high- opportunity, low-poverty neighborhoods. In order to be intentional about program roll- out, DHA should consult with other PHAs which have rolled out SAFMRs to understand lessons learned from program implementation.Item Open Access Addressing Housing-Related Social Needs Through Medicaid: Lessons From North Carolina's Healthy Opportunities Pilots Program.(Health affairs (Project Hope), 2024-02) Huber, Katie; Nohria, Raman; Nandagiri, Vibhav; Whitaker, Rebecca; Tchuisseu, Yolande Pokam; Pylypiw, Nicholas; Dennison, Meaghan; Van Stekelenburg, Brianna; Van Vleet, Amanda; Perez, Maria Ramirez; Morreale, Madlyn C; Thoumi, Andrea; Lyn, Michelle; Saunders, Robert S; Bleser, William KNorth Carolina Medicaid's Healthy Opportunities Pilots program is the country's first comprehensive program to evaluate the impact of paying community-based organizations to provide eligible Medicaid enrollees with an array of evidence-based services to address four domains of health-related social needs, one of which is housing. Using a mixed-methods approach, we mapped the distribution of severe housing problems and then examined the design and implementation of Healthy Opportunities Pilots housing services in the three program regions. Four cross-cutting implementation and policy themes emerged: accounting for variation in housing resources and needs to address housing insecurity, defining and pricing housing services in Medicaid, engaging diverse stakeholders across sectors to facilitate successful implementation, and developing sustainable financial models for delivery. The lessons learned and actionable insights can help inform the efforts of stakeholders elsewhere, particularly other state Medicaid programs, to design and implement cross-sectoral programs that address housing-related social needs by leveraging multiple policy-based resources. These lessons can also be useful for federal policy makers developing guidance on addressing housing-related needs in Medicaid.Item Open Access An Analysis of How Housing Incentives Can Reduce Teacher Attrition in North Carolina(2020-05) Calvert, MatthewBackground North Carolina, and the entire United States, is in the midst of a teacher shortage. The teacher shortage is caused by two main factors: not enough teachers are joining the profession and too many teachers are leaving the classroom. In North Carolina, the pipeline for teachers is drying up. Enrollment in the UNC system’s education programs—which produce more than 35% of NC teachers—is down more than 40%. Superintendents also report that the number of applications per job opening has decreased and some job postings receive no applications at all. Each year about 8% of teachers in North Carolina leave the classroom. Teacher attrition and a glut of inexperienced and underprepared teachers seriously inhibits student achievement. It also costs North Carolina millions each year to recruit, hire, and train new teachers. Teachers leave the classroom for a variety of reasons that are complicated and often interdependent. However, among the main reasons are low pay and rising cost of housing. Adjusted for inflation, NC teacher pay decreased nearly 12% from 1999-2016. Average teacher pay in North Carolina has increased from 46th to 34th in the United States. This increase is not enough to keep pace with rising cost of living and housing (NEA, 2019). During the past decade, the average home price in North Carolina has increased 45% (“North Carolina Home Prices and Values”, 2020). As the cost of living continues to increase, teaching becomes a less appealing profession. Some NC districts have used housing interventions like subsidized apartment complexes specifically to recruit and retain teachers. There is a lack of rigorous academic research, but anecdotal evidence suggests these housing programs have been successful on a small scale. However, the subsidized apartment complexes are unable to meet demand and should be supplemented with other housing interventions. Proposed Policy I am proposing a no-money-down home loan program for teachers modeled after the VA’s program to help retain teachers by addressing the challenge of affordable housing. North Carolina would guarantee 25% of home loans through the program. All public-school teachers in North Carolina would be eligible for the program. Teachers could opt for an option with a 5- year commitment with no fees or a 3-year commitment with 1.5% fees on the value of the loan. Methods To determine whether a no-money-down loan program would help address teacher attrition, I created a questionnaire for teachers in North Carolina and I interviewed district-level leaders. I also built a financial model to analyze the feasibility of the program as well as the cost to the State. Results/Key Takeaways There is interest in the proposed program—the overwhelming majority of teachers want to own a home and lack of funding for a down payment is the second largest barrier. Over 65% of teachers said they would be interested in buying a home with the proposed program. Owning a home increases the likelihood of a teacher staying—75% of teachers said owning a home would make them much more- or slightly more likely to stay in their current school. Hiring and retaining quality teachers is difficult—Superintendents repeatedly said that this is one of, if not, the biggest challenges for them today. They also said that they need policy solutions to help solve these challenges. The financial cost is low, but liability is big—If the program is widely adopted, North Carolina could carry billions on its balance sheet. However, this risk is borne mostly by private lenders. The State could expect to pay only about $1 million in the first year. The proposed policy could benefit North Carolina financially and academically—Each 1% reduction in attrition saves almost $1 million for North Carolina. In addition to financial savings, student achievement should increase as teachers stay in the classroom longer. Recommendation I recommend that North Carolina implement the no-money-down home loan program for a period of at least 10 years. This program would be most effective for “middle-age” teachers between 28-45 who have been teaching for a few years. The commitment will help address teacher retention and the lack of a down payment will help teachers afford a home. For very expensive counties or counties with low housing stock, districts should build more subsidized apartment complexes to supplement the no-money-down program.Item Open Access Association of Unmet Social Needs With Metformin Use Among Patients With Type 2 Diabetes.(Diabetes care, 2023-11) Drake, Connor; Alfaro, Jorge Morales; Blalock, Dan V; Ito, Kristin; Batch, Bryan C; Bosworth, Hayden B; Berkowitz, Seth A; Zullig, Leah LObjective
To evaluate the relationship between social needs and metformin use among adults with type 2 diabetes (T2D).Research design and methods
In a prospective cohort study of adults with T2D (n = 722), we linked electronic health record (EHR) and Surescripts (Surescripts, LLC) prescription network data to abstract data on patient-reported social needs and to calculate metformin adherence based on expected refill frequency using a proportion of days covered methodology.Results
After adjusting for demographics and clinical complexity, two or more social needs (-0.046; 95% CI -0.089, 0.003), being uninsured (-0.052; 95% CI -0.095, -0.009) and while adjusting for other needs, being without housing (-0.069; 95% CI -0.121, -0.018) and lack of access to medicine/health care (-0.058; 95% CI -0.115, -0.000) were associated with lower use.Conclusions
We found that overall social need burden and specific needs, particularly housing and health care access, were associated with clinically significant reductions in metformin adherence among patients with T2D.Item Open Access Cities and Labor Market Dynamics(2012) Mangum, Kyle DouglasPeople live and work in local markets spatially distinct from one another, yet space is absent from most economic models of the national labor market. Workers choose the markets in which they will participate, but there are costs to mobility. Furthermore, cities are heterogeneous in a number of dimensions, including their local labor market productivity, their housing supply, and their offering of amenities.
I examine the impact of these spatial considerations on the dynamics of local labor markets and the national market to which they aggregate. First I study the patterns of location choice through a gravity model of migration applied to rich panel data from the U.S. I find that location choices respond to temporal shocks to the labor market, but only after controlling for local heterogeneity. Next, with this result as motivation, I turn to development of a dynamic spatial equilibrium of the national labor market. I make a technical contribution to work in dynamic equilibrium modeling by empirically implementing an island economy model of worker mobility. I quantify the importance of worker mobility costs versus local housing prices for explaining spatial variation in the unemployment rate. I find that the link between the local housing market and the local labor market is important for explaining the spatial dispersion in unemployment, but mobility costs are not. Finally, I further exploit the dynamic equilibrium framework to examine the effect of local housing policy on labor market growth. I find that housing supply regulation is a constraint to growth, but is only binding on cities that are particularly desirable because of their labor market opportunities or amenities. I find that some lightly regulated markets have a contingent of population that has been pushed out of more regulated markets by high housing prices.
Item Open Access Climate adaptation and policy-induced inflation of coastal property value.(PLoS One, 2015) McNamara, Dylan E; Gopalakrishnan, Sathya; Smith, Martin D; Murray, A BradHuman population density in the coastal zone and potential impacts of climate change underscore a growing conflict between coastal development and an encroaching shoreline. Rising sea-levels and increased storminess threaten to accelerate coastal erosion, while growing demand for coastal real estate encourages more spending to hold back the sea in spite of the shrinking federal budget for beach nourishment. As climatic drivers and federal policies for beach nourishment change, the evolution of coastline mitigation and property values is uncertain. We develop an empirically grounded, stochastic dynamic model coupling coastal property markets and shoreline evolution, including beach nourishment, and show that a large share of coastal property value reflects capitalized erosion control. The model is parameterized for coastal properties and physical forcing in North Carolina, U.S.A. and we conduct sensitivity analyses using property values spanning a wide range of sandy coastlines along the U.S. East Coast. The model shows that a sudden removal of federal nourishment subsidies, as has been proposed, could trigger a dramatic downward adjustment in coastal real estate, analogous to the bursting of a bubble. We find that the policy-induced inflation of property value grows with increased erosion from sea level rise or increased storminess, but the effect of background erosion is larger due to human behavioral feedbacks. Our results suggest that if nourishment is not a long-run strategy to manage eroding coastlines, a gradual removal is more likely to smooth the transition to more climate-resilient coastal communities.Item Open Access Do Evictions Cause Income Changes? An Instrumental Variables Approach(2019-04) Mok, GraceEvictions are an important aspect of the affordable housing crisis facing low-income American renters. However, there has been little research quantifying the causal impact of evictions, which poses challenges for academics interested in understanding inequality and policy-makers interested in reducing it. Merging two datasets both new to the literature, I address this gap in the causal literature by using an instrumental variables strategy to examine the impact of evictions on household income over time in Durham, North Carolina. Exploiting gentrification-related evictions as an instrument, I find a 2.5% decrease in household income after eviction. This is a small, but significant decrease in income given that median household income for households at time of eviction is about $15,000.Item Open Access Economic and Demographic Effects of Infrastructure Reconstruction After a Natural Disaster(2018) Laurito, Maria MartaIn this dissertation I study the long-term effects of post-disaster reconstruction of infrastructure on economic and demographic outcomes. The effects on individuals and communities that result from shocks to existing infrastructure have not been widely explored in the economic and development literature. As some of the largest natural disasters in recent times have shown, massive destruction of infrastructure is followed by large influxes of resources aimed at the reconstruction of damaged property. For example, after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Indonesia alone received enough aid to deal with the estimated seven billion dollars in infrastructure losses. While there are studies that address how money was allocated, there is hardly any good empirical evidence that provides a causal estimate of the effect that large reconstruction programs have on targeted beneficiaries. In this dissertation I address this gap in the literature.
The context of my study is the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, one of the most devastating natural disasters in recent years. In particular, the location for this analysis is the Indonesian province of Aceh, which was the area hardest hit by the disaster (Chapter 2). One of the main reasons why long-term impacts of post-disaster reconstruction remain an understudied topic is the lack of access to data that tracks individuals over time and across space. Having longitudinal data of this type provides a more complete picture of beneficiaries of post-disaster aid, as well as the effects of reconstruction programs on economic outcomes and demographic processes, such as migration. My dissertation addresses this concern by using a unique, population representative panel of survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Study of the Tsunami Aftermath and Recovery (STAR), which collected extensive individual, household, and community data in Aceh, Indonesia, every year between 2005 and 2010, with an additional follow-up in 2015 (Chapter 3).
Using these data, the first question I explore empirically is an estimation of the causal effects of reconstruction of the housing stock on a multidimensional set of well-being measures (Chapter 4). First, I show that post-tsunami reconstruction was largely determined by the level of damage, regardless of pre-tsunami characteristics of communities, households, and individuals. Based on this finding, I identify the causal effects of housing reconstruction on post-disaster well-being using an individual fixed effects strategy. I show that housing reconstruction causes significant reductions in levels of post-traumatic stress reactivity, and significant increases in socioeconomic well-being. These effects are mainly concentrated after two years of housing tenure, and among those from highly damaged communities. Housing reconstruction has a positive relationship with self-rated physical health (although these estimates are not statistically significant). These results provide important causal evidence of how reconstruction of infrastructure after a natural disaster can have long-lasting, positive consequences for the recovery of survivors.
Next, I continue looking at the effects of rebuilding individual assets (i.e. the home) but turn to the analysis of migration, a key demographic process following natural disasters. Specifically, I look at migration and its relationship with housing reconstruction and well-being (Chapter 5). The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami displaced large numbers of people. In Aceh, Indonesia, an estimated 500,000 people left their communities after the disaster. In this research, we provide a demographic perspective on displacement and longer-term adaptation and recovery after a disaster. We describe patterns of mobility among tsunami survivors, including those who did not return to their origin communities, those who did return, and those who never left. We also consider mobility among those living in communities that did not suffer tsunami damage. We then examine how the likelihood of receiving housing aid varies across these subgroups. Finally, we consider how measures of subjective well-being evolve after the disaster. Results show that predictors of relocation vary significantly across individuals depending on the level of exposure of communities to the physical damage of the tsunami. Relocation decisions, and in particular staying in the pre-tsunami community, are highly related to the likelihood of benefiting from housing aid. And, changes in subjective well-being not only depend on receipt of housing aid but also on interactions between relocation decisions.
The last empirical analysis changes the focus from the reconstruction of individual assets to the reconstruction of community infrastructure (Chapter 6}), an important component of post-disaster rebuilding programs. In the aftermath of the tsunami, it is estimated that a total of 2,600 km of roads and 119 bridges needed rebuilding. In less than four years a total of 3,700 km of roads and all the destroyed (or damaged) bridges had been rebuilt \citep{indonesia2010provincial}. Roads can be an important gateway to economic development, so in this analysis I focus on estimating the economic effects of road reconstruction in post-tsunami Aceh. First, I exploit variation in timing of road reconstruction projects at the community level and, using a fixed effects strategy, I show that road reconstruction may not be enough to cause significant economic effects, but that quality of road construction matters, specifically access to all-weather roads. Further, I also show that road reconstruction that happens in combination with public works programs has additional positive effects. I provide further evidence on the effects of road reconstruction by looking at the specific case of the reconstruction of the Banda Aceh-Meulaboh road. The Banda Aceh-Meulaboh road is a good example of a project that seeks to restore large public infrastructure after a major shock to the built environment under the assumption that it would contribute to restore economic activity in the area. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, I exploit changes in access to the road between 2005 and 2015. I show that gaining access to the road has positive and modest effects both on individuals and households and, in particular, on households in rural areas. I did not find any statistically significant negative effects of losing access to the road but results from this case study point that losing access may be hindering some progress, for example, to translate work opportunities into higher wages.
Taken together, results from the empirical analyses in this dissertation fill an important gap in our understanding of what happens to disaster victims in the long-run, how they benefit from reconstruction programs that rebuild both individual and community assets, and how these programs can have long-lasting consequences on economics and demographic trajectories of populations. As a result, my study not only represents an important contribution to existing literature, but it also underscores the importance of having data collection projects that account for the long-term nature of infrastructure reconstruction projects. Natural disasters are projected to become increasingly more common, and this type of data can result in empirical research, like this dissertation, that can improve our understanding of how disaster victims cope, which strategies work best and why, and create lessons that can inform disaster management and reconstruction policies that will result in successful post-disaster experiences.
Item Open Access Pooling Resources to Meet Critical Needs: An Examination of Cary First Christian Church as a Site of Hospitality(2024) Brickhouse, Mycal XavierOn January 16, 2016, I was installed as the pastor of Cary First Christian Church in Cary, NC. Cary First Christian Church was founded in 1868 as a congregationalist congregation for the African American community in Cary, NC. Since then, the church has sought to be a relevant community presence by addressing the challenges that face the surrounding community. As a pastor, I sought to build upon this legacy to be communally engaged by introducing a vision to the congregation to complete the design production of a community senior center and affordable housing complex that would seek to serve seniors, especially those who identify as low to moderate-income, African American, and Latino/Latinx, in the Cary Community.
This thesis will examine the theological framework that supported my pastoral vision of community development by drawing on a historical analysis of the ecclesiology of the Black Church, demonstrating the need for senior affordable housing in Cary, NC, and highlighting the ministry practices utilized to inspire collective participation in this vision. This thesis will demonstrate how a contextual exegesis of one’s context is essential in understanding the local community's needs, the congregation's capacity, and the network of resources available to determine a possible solution to a problem.
In the case of Cary First Christian Church, the problem was rising housing costs and the elimination of seniors aging in place. This problem was identified through members of the Cary First Christian Church serving seniors through a meal delivery program and witnessing the need for ongoing services to assist seniors in aging in place. Such a problem mirrors that of those in the early church, where members of the faith community needed vital resources, such as access to food and shelter. The New Testament church demonstrated intentional and organized support for those in need. Communities of faith should take a learning journey to determine how they can be sites of hospitality - meeting the needs of the most vulnerable. While some communities are not always willing to express radical hospitality - relinquishing control and being open to the improvisational move of the Holy Spirit, when communities commit themselves to being sites of hospitality, we begin to see the abundance of resources that are connected to us. This spirit inspired Cary First Christian Church as we recognized that we were blessed with assets that might be able to be deployed to help meet critical housing needs for seniors in our community.
Item Open Access Residential metal contamination and potential health risks of exposure in adobe brick houses in Potosí, Bolivia.(The Science of the total environment, 2016-08) McEwen, Abigail R; Hsu-Kim, Heileen; Robins, Nicholas A; Hagan, Nicole A; Halabi, Susan; Barras, Olivo; Richter, Daniel deB; Vandenberg, John JPotosí, Bolivia, is the site of centuries of historic and present-day mining of the Cerro Rico, a mountain known for its rich polymetallic deposits, and was the site of large-scale Colonial era silver refining operations. In this study, the concentrations of several metal and metalloid elements were quantified in adobe brick, dirt floor, and surface dust samples from 49 houses in Potosí. Median concentrations of total mercury (Hg), lead (Pb), and arsenic (As) were significantly greater than concentrations measured in Sucre, Bolivia, a non-mining town, and exceeded US-based soil screening levels. Adobe brick samples were further analyzed for bioaccessible concentrations of trace elements using a simulated gastric fluid (GF) extraction. Median GF extractable concentrations of Hg, As, and Pb were 0.085, 13.9, and 32.2% of the total element concentration, respectively. Total and GF extractable concentrations of Hg, As, and Pb were used to estimate exposure and potential health risks to children following incidental ingestion of adobe brick particles. Risks were assessed using a range of potential ingestion rates (50-1000mg/day). Overall, the results of the risk assessment show that the majority of households sampled contained concentrations of bioaccessible Pb and As, but not Hg, that represent a potential health risk. Even at the lowest ingestion rate considered, the majority of households exceeded the risk threshold for Pb, indicating that the concentrations of this metal are of particular concern. To our knowledge, this is the first study to quantify key trace elements in building materials in adobe brick houses and the results indicate that these houses are a potential source of exposure to metals and metalloids in South American mining communities. Additional studies are needed to fully characterize personal exposure and to understand potential adverse health outcomes within the community.Item Open Access Results from Screening Polyurethane Foam Based Consumer Products for Flame Retardant Chemicals: Assessing Impacts on the Change in the Furniture Flammability Standards.(Environmental science & technology, 2016-10) Cooper, Ellen M; Kroeger, Gretchen; Davis, Katherine; Clark, Charlotte R; Ferguson, P Lee; Stapleton, Heather MFlame retardant (FR) chemicals have often been added to polyurethane foam to meet required state and federal flammability standards. However, some FRs (e.g., PBDEs and TDCIPP) are associated with health hazards and are now restricted from use in some regions. In addition, California's residential furniture flammability standard (TB-117) has undergone significant amendments over the past few years, and TDCIPP has been added to California's Proposition 65 list. These events have likely led to shifts in the types of FRs used, and the products to which they are applied. To provide more information on the use of FRs in products containing polyurethane foam (PUF), we established a screening service for the general public. Participants residing in the US were allowed to submit up to 5 samples from their household for analysis, free of charge, and supplied information on the product category, labeling, and year and state of purchase. Between February 2014 and June 2016, we received 1141 PUF samples for analysis from various products including sofas, chairs, mattresses, car seats and pillows. Of these samples tested, 52% contained a FR at levels greater than 1% by weight. Tris(1,3-dichloroisopropyl)phosphate (TDCIPP) was the most common FR detected in PUF samples, and was the most common FR detected in all product categories. Analysis of the data by purchasing date suggests that the use of TDCIPP decreased in recent years, paralleled with an increase in the use of TCIPP and a nonhalogenated aryl phosphate mixture we call "TBPP." In addition, we observed significant decreases in FR applications in furniture products and child car seats, suggesting the use of additive FRs in PUF may be declining, perhaps as a reflection of recent changes to TB-117 and Proposition 65. More studies are needed to determine how these changes in FR use relate to changes in exposure among the general population.Item Open Access Stuyvesant Town: Evaluating the Beneficiaries and Victims of an Act of Urban Renewal for the Middle Class(2018-04-19) Speed, ElizabethMy thesis offers a critical analysis of Stuyvesant Town, a housing development built in New York City in 1947. At this time, Stuyvesant Town was the largest redevelopment housing project ever built in the United States and remains the largest housing development in New York City. Stuyvesant Town is comprised of 8,755 apartments that are distributed throughout 35 13-story red brick cruciform buildings. The development is bound by 20th Street to the north, 14th street to the south, Avenue C to the east, and 1st Avenue to the west. Although Robert Moses planned Stuyvesant Town for white middle-income residents, primarily veterans and their families, affordability protections have gradually been dismantled and Stuyvesant Town now offers over half of its units at market-rate rents to the relatively wealthy. While scholars often regard Stuyvesant Town as a harmful failure by criticizing its design and how it was developed, I investigate their views by examining the complex’s evolution over the 70 years since its conception. My thesis employs Moses’ writings and speeches, contemporaneous articles, scholarly literature, author interviews, and close on-site observation to analyze Stuyvesant Town’s goals, design, development, and impact on New York City. I conclude that while Stuyvesant Town’s layout and amenities separate it from New York City and make the development spatially disorienting, this separation is to the detriment of the city in which it resides, rather than to Stuyvesant Town’s residents. My research indicates that the development’s desirable location and its security and amenities, made possible by its residents’ socioeconomic status, have prevented its insular qualities from being harmful to its residents in the way that some other tower in the park style developments have been to their own and even make residents appreciate Stuyvesant Town’s containment. I also conclude that Stuyvesant Town is problematic for New York City as a whole because its affordability has devolved, while its lack of racial diversity has remained fairly consistent. It is no longer a middle-class bastion, contradicting its intended purpose, but it has maintained its predominantly white racial makeup. Government intervention is needed if Stuyvesant Town is ever to regain its capacity to fulfill Moses’ promise of middle-class affordability within New York City.Item Open Access The Dormitories are Burning: Gender-Neutral Housing and Critical Trans* Politics in the Contemporary University(2014-04-29) Frothingham, SunnyWhile traditional college housing systems organize students along a binary of biological sex, many universities, like Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC- Chapel Hill), are beginning to address the inadequacies of sexed housing. Practically, sexed housing often fails to be a comfortable or safe environment for students who are trans*. Ideologically, sexed housing presupposes that all students will fit neatly within the sexed housing categories the college recognizes and enforces, and that biological sex is a stable foundation of difference. In Chapter 1, I present a basic overview of Michel Foucault’s understanding of power, in order to develop the context of gender-neutral housing policy in a broader critical trans* politics through the use of Dean Spade’s Normal Life. Spade’s conception of life-chances draws heavily from Foucault’s biopolitics, which examines the way states and institutions shape people into neoliberal subjects—people who fit the needs of the market. I relate three modes of power, victim-perpetrator, disciplinary, and population management to gender neutral housing through Spade’s critical trans* analysis, and Judith Butler’s conceptions of normative gender performativity and compulsory heterosexuality. While attempting to change the administration of sex and gender by a higher education institution is most directly, in opposition to population management policies; I posit that a change in housing policy may have broader potential to decrease the incidence of perpetrator-victim violence and challenge the disciplinary norms that alienate trans* bodies. I also interrogate the potential for gender fluidity and gender queerness to be an asset to the human capital of the neoliberal subject, as produced in part by the institutional administration of gender. In Chapter 2, I explore the historical precedent of American higher education institutions’ power to reinforce and reproduce hierarchical prejudices in its politics of sexed spaces, racial and religious barriers, and codes of gender performance. More broadly, I explore the stakes the university holds, as a neoliberal institution, in gender and sex. In Chapter 3, I posit elements of a comprehensive gender-neutral housing as a possible solution to address harassment of trans* students in university settings, through examples of efforts to reform university policies at Duke and UNC- Chapel Hill. In addition to publically available information about Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill, I come at the issue of gender-neutral housing from my experience in these spaces. By deliberately exploring cases that I am engaged with, committed to, and implicated in, I offer a perspective shaped by the knowledge production of my own activism. Especially given the relative newness of gender-neutral housing proposals at high profile universities, I see my experience as a valuable asset in explicating and analyzing what is at stake in higher education housing policy. Chapter 4 offers an overview of the potential for gender-neutral housing to improve the safety and comfort of trans* students in college and the policy’s repercussions for classification of gender on campus and in society. Here I reiterate and explicate the implications of gender-neutral housing in a neoliberal setting as a population control method, and explore the potential for gender fluidity to be co-opted for neoliberal ends.Item Open Access The Effects of Redlining on Residential Energy Efficiency and Resilience in Extreme Temperature Events(2024-04-26) Clapper, HaleyResidential energy efficiency is a component of individual and community resilience during extreme temperature events, especially extreme heat. Historic and lower-quality homes are often less energy efficient, requiring more time to heat up during cold events or cool down during heat events due to gaps in building envelopes. In the 1930s, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), a U.S. government-sponsored organization tasked with refinancing home mortgages, developed residential security maps of over 200 U.S. cities to appraise neighborhoods based on the perceived lending risk associated with demographics, a practice known as “redlining.” Over several decades, redlined neighborhoods predominantly populated by low-income and non-white residents received less investment than non-redlined neighborhoods predominantly populated by wealthier white residents. This study explores how historical redlining has left a legacy of disinvestment in housing, which may contribute to inequities in residential energy efficiency compared to non-redlined neighborhoods. Using the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s ResStock tool, we modeled indoor temperature change in various building types over time under coincident extreme temperature and power outage scenarios. Additionally, we modeled energy efficiency upgrades to identify opportunities for enhancing building envelopes. We then examined performance differences for specific building types that are notably more or less prevalent in redlined and non-redlined neighborhoods in Durham, North Carolina. We identified several building types that were more prevalent in redlined areas and performed less efficiently on average compared to home types that were more prevalent in non-redlined areas. Lastly, we found that upgrades can enhance energy efficiency in homes, but further study is needed to elucidate potential differences in upgrade benefits between homes that are more prevalent in redlined areas compared to those more prevalent in non-redlined areas. Layered with other consequences of neighborhood disinvestment, such as urban heat island effects, these inequities can threaten human health, energy affordability, and overall resilience during extreme temperature events. Overall, this analysis provides insight into potential disparities underlying residential energy efficiency associated with redlining and spatial distributions of building characteristics, which could potentially inform policies and retrofit investments to build more equitable resilience in the face of future extreme temperature events.Item Open Access The Microfoundations of Housing Market Dynamics(2008-04-24) Murphy, Alvin DenisThe goal of this dissertation is to provide a coherent and computationally feasible basis for the analysis of the dynamics of both housing supply and demand from a microeconomics perspective. The dissertation includes two papers which incorporate unique micro data with new methodological approaches to examine housing market dynamics. The first paper models the development decisions of land owners as a dynamic discrete choice problem to recover the primitives of housing supply. The second paper develops a new methodology for dynamically estimating the demand for durable goods, such as housing, when the choice set is large.
In the first paper, using the new data set discussed above, I develop and estimate the first dynamic microeconometric model of supply. Parcel owners maximize the discounted sum of expected per-period profits by choosing the optimal time and nature of construction. In addition to current profits, the owners of land also take into account their expectations about future returns to development, balancing expected future prices against expected future costs. This forward looking behavior is crucial in explaining observed aggregate patterns of construction. Finally, the outcomes generated by the parcel owners' profit maximizing behavior, in addition to observable sales prices, allow me to identify the parameters of the per-period profit function at a fine level of geography.
By modeling the optimal behavior of land owners directly, I can capture important aspects of profits that explain both market volatility and geographic differences in construction rates. In particular, the model captures both the role of expectations and of more abstract costs (such as regulation) in determining the timing and volatility of supply in way that would not be possible using aggregate data. The model returns estimates of the various components of profits: prices, variable costs, and the fixed costs of building, which incorporate both physical and regulatory costs.
Estimates of the model suggest that changes in the value of the right-to-build are the primary cause of house price appreciation, that the demographic characteristics of existing residents are determinants of the cost environment, and that physical and regulatory costs are pro-cyclical. Finally, using estimates of the profit function, I explain the role of dynamics in determining the timing of supply by distinguishing the effects of expected future cost changes from the effects of expected future price changes. A counterfactual simulation suggest that pro-cyclical costs, combined with forward looking behavior, significantly dampen construction volatility. These results sheds light on one of the empirical puzzles of the housing market - what determines the volatility of housing construction?
In the second paper, I outline a tractable model of neighborhood choice in a dynamic setting along with a computationally straightforward estimation approach. The approach allows the observed and unobserved features of each neighborhood to evolve in a completely flexible way and uses information on neighborhood choice and the timing of moves to recover semi-parametrically: (i) preferences for housing and neighborhood attributes, (ii) preferences for the performance of the house as a financial asset, and (iii) moving costs. In order to accommodate a number of important features of housing market, this approach extends methods developed in the recent literature on the dynamic demand for durable goods in a number of key ways. The model and estimation approach are applicable to the study of a wide set of dynamic phenomena in housing markets and cities. These include, for example, the analysis of the microdynamics of residential segregation and gentrification within metropolitan areas. More generally, the model and estimation approach can be easily extended to study the dynamics of housing and labor markets in a system of cities.
Item Open Access What Is The Relationship Between Racial Housing Wealth Disparities and Violence In Cities?(2017-09-18) McDade, ZachMuch empirical literature analyzing crime and violence omits an important theoretical “fundamental cause”: an underlying mechanism that might drive both the analysis’s proposed explanatory factors and outcome phenomena of violence. If violence and its “causes” are both driven by a third factor not addressed in research, there will be no hope of creating policy that fundamentally reduces violence. This paper proposes and quantifies racism in public policy as a fundamental cause both of violence and the many factors that have been proposed to “explain” violence. It then develops an empirical strategy to assess whether racism in policy, conceptualized as race-disparities in housing wealth, is associated with violence in cities. This paper’s dataset and strategy do not produce an observable relationship. But limitations inherent to the analysis point to promising next steps to assessing this question.