Comments on Jeff R. Crump's ‘The end of public housing as we know it: public housing policy, labor regulation and the US city’

Alex Schwartz

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2003, vol. 27, issue 1, 188-192

Abstract: Jeff Crump's discussion of housing policy in the United States is highly polemic but not very analytic or informative. Crump argues that federal housing policy is attempting to move people out of public housing and into the private housing market and the lowwage labor force. However, he fails to support his argument with credible evidence. My comments point out the most egregious of Crump's claims. I start with Crump's most extreme contentions that housing policy is coercing public housing residents into the low‐wage labor force. I then question his dismissive attitude toward the problems confronted by residents of distressed public housing and policies designed to help low‐income families move out of impoverished neighborhoods. I subsequently show how Crump exaggerates the extent to which federal housing policy is clearing central cities of subsidized low‐income housing. I conclude with a few words on the serious issues that a more informed critique of US housing policy could have raised. L'exposé de Jeff Crump sur la politique du logement aux Etats‐Unis relève principalement de la polémique, plus que de l'analyse ou de l'information. Selon lui, la politique fédérale tente de déplacer la population des logements sociaux vers les marchés de l'habitat privé et de la main‐d'œuvre à bas salaires. Toutefois, il n'apporte aucune preuve crédible à son propos. Ma réaction porte sur ses arguments les plus insignes, en commençant par ses allégations extrémistes selon lesquelles la politique du logement contraint les habitants des logements publics à des emplois peu rémunérés. Je remets ensuite en cause son dédain à l'égard des difficultés que rencontrent les résidents des logements sociaux insalubres, sans oublier les politiques prévues pour aider les familles à faibles revenus à quitter les quartiers pauvres. En conséquence, à mon avis, Crump exagère la mesure dans laquelle la politique fédérale élimine des centres‐villes les habitats à loyer modéré subventionnés. En quelques mots, ma conclusion porte sur les questions graves qu'aurait pu soulever un commentateur mieux documenté sur la politique du logement aux Etats‐Unis.

Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.00439

Related works:
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:bla:ijurrs:v:27:y:2003:i:1:p:188-192

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0309-1317

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research is currently edited by Alan Harding, Roger Keil and Jeremy Seekings

More articles in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().