Public Housing Myths

Public Housing Myths PDF

Author: Nicholas Dagen Bloom

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2015-04-10

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0801456258

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Popular opinion holds that public housing is a failure; so what more needs to be said about seventy-five years of dashed hopes and destructive policies? Over the past decade, however, historians and social scientists have quietly exploded the common wisdom about public housing. Public Housing Myths pulls together these fresh perspectives and unexpected findings into a single volume to provide an updated, panoramic view of public housing. With eleven chapters by prominent scholars, the collection not only covers a groundbreaking range of public housing issues transnationally but also does so in a revisionist and provocative manner. With students in mind, Public Housing Myths is organized thematically around popular preconceptions and myths about the policies surrounding big city public housing, the places themselves, and the people who call them home. The authors challenge narratives of inevitable decline, architectural determinism, and rampant criminality that have shaped earlier accounts and still dominate public perception.

Under Siege

Under Siege PDF

Author: Walter S. DeKeseredy

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 9780739107041

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This book describes the relationship between poverty, social marginalization and crime in six public housing communities in "West Town" (in Ottawa, Ontario). Due to high levels of poverty, joblessness, low collective efficacy, and other social problems, the communities were for the most part unhappy places and this was compounded by the amount of crime. Based on interviews and responses to the Quality of Neighborhood Life Survey (QNLS), the study showed that the residents were exposed to levels of risk -- poverty, social disadvantage, disorder and fear -- greater than those in the broader society. The incidence of crime was also high, with 55% of respondents being victimized by predatory crime, wide-spread public racial and sexual harassment, and a disproportionate number of females experiencing intimate partner and stranger violence in public settings. The last chapter focuses on possible government responses, including economic approaches (higher minimum wages, reducing unemployment), and social interventions (provision of day care, refurbishing of public housing, improved public transportation, and education).

The Hidden War

The Hidden War PDF

Author: Susan J. Popkin

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 9780813528335

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Describes what it is like to live in some of the worst neighborhoods in the United States and discusses what government officials can do to improve the safety and quality of public housing developments.

The Last Neighborhood Cops

The Last Neighborhood Cops PDF

Author: Gregory Holcomb Umbach

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 081354906X

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In recent years, community policing has transformed American law enforcement by promising to build trust between citizens and officers. Today, three-quarters of American police departments claim to embrace the strategy. But decades before the phrase was coined, the New York City Housing Authority Police Department (HAPD) had pioneered community-based crime-fighting strategies. The Last Neighborhood Cops reveals the forgotten history of the residents and cops who forged community policing in the public housing complexes of New York City during the second half of the twentieth century. Through a combination of poignant storytelling and historical analysis, Fritz Umbach draws on buried and confidential police records and voices of retired officers and older residents to help explore the rise and fall of the HAPD's community-based strategy, while questioning its tactical effectiveness. The result is a unique perspective on contemporary debates of community policing and historical developments chronicling the influence of poor and working-class populations on public policy making.

Crime, Neighborhood, and Public Housing

Crime, Neighborhood, and Public Housing PDF

Author: Garth Davies

Publisher: LFB Scholarly Publishing

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13:

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Annotation Public housing projects, both in their structural design and sociodemographic make-up, constitute neighborhoods. Informal social control theory suggests that certain social factors differentially affect a neighborhood s ability to regulate aspects of residential life, including crime. Public housing neighborhoods do not, however, exist in a vacuum; they are integral parts of their surrounding environments. Neighborhoods adjacent to public housing areas are likely to be affected by its proximity. At the same time, public housing is also reciprocally influenced by its immediate neighbors. Spatial autocorrelation analysis provides evidence of spatial patterning of crime in public housing and public housing neighborhoods. Generalized estimating equations reveal the presence of both outward and inward diffusion that is sometimes, but not always, mediated by sociostructural factors. The findings suggest that policies premised on deconcentration and decentralization would reduce crime in, and otherwise benefit, both public housing neighborhoods and surrounding communities.

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