Posted a lecture (I won't be able to get to because of a conflict in my schedule) titled "Housing Needs for the City and Region: Does the superheated housing market in Logan Circle contribute to concentrated poverty in Ivy City?" Wish I could go because it sounds silly (not to belittle anyone's research) to me. This is a metro area, so the poor are not limited to Ivy City. There are perfectly good neighborhoods in PG County. What I gather she may mean is there are fewer neighborhoods for low income folks to relocate to so there is greater concentration in neighborhoods they can afford.
Yet I looked at some of her earlier research and there seems to be a lot of focus on neighborhoods that are predominately white and adjacent to predominately white neighborhoods. Another problem as mentioned in the report was high mobility rates of 62 percent for the District.
I'm wonder if the cure is as bad as the disease. On one hand you have low investment in areas, the housing stock is allowed to deteriorate (to the point of no return) and a negative growth rate for the District. When an area looks attractive profit-wise and investors invest, and people find it worthwhile to restore the housing stock, it becomes unaffordable to lower income families. Another problem I have is the income level. It treats a single mom making $30K the same way as a family of four. A household could be 1,2, 3, 4 persons. Income of $30,000 and one person, you could live in a Dupont studio apartment. The same amount for that single mom, doesn't go as far, maybe a 1 bedroom in Brookline or the apartments at Mt. Vernon Sq. Same income for a family of four... I have no clue what you can do with that. Also the 25% of your income going to housing does not apply. For me it never applied, it was more like 40%-50% of my income going to housing.
posted by Mari @ 20.10.03
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