Have Distressed Neighborhoods Recovered? Evidence from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program

Alvaro Cortes, Jenny Schuetz and Jonathan Spader

No 2015-16, Finance and Economics Discussion Series from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.)

Abstract: During the 2007-2009 housing crisis, concentrations of foreclosed and vacant properties created severe blight in many cities and neighborhoods. The federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) was established to help mitigate distress in hard-hit areas by funding the rehabilitation or demolition of troubled properties. This paper analyzes housing market changes in areas that received investments during the second round of NSP funding, focusing on seven large urban counties. Grantees used NSP to invest in census tracts with high rates of distressed and vacancy properties, and tracts that had previously received other housing subsidies. The median NSP tract received quite sparse investment, relative to the overall housing stock and the initial levels of distress. Analysis of housing market outcomes indicates the recovery has been uneven across counties and neighborhoods. In a few counties, there is some evidence that NSP2 activity is correlated with improved housing outcomes.

Keywords: Foreclosures; Neighborhood revitalization; economic recovery; federal housing policy; housing markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H40 H70 R10 R30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2015-03-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/feds/2015/files/2015016pap.pdf Full text (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2015.016 http://dx.doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2015.016 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Have distressed neighborhoods recovered? Evidence from the neighborhood stabilization program (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2015-16

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Finance and Economics Discussion Series from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier ().