Volume 13 - Article 1 | Pages 1–34  

Placing the poor while keeping the rich in their place: Separating strategies for optimally managing residential mobility and assimilation

By Jonathan P. Caulkins, Gustav Feichtinger, Dieter Grass, Michael Johnson, Gernot Tragler, Yuri Yegorov

Abstract

A central objective of modern US housing policy is deconcentrating poverty through "housing mobility programs" that move poor families into middle class neighborhoods. Pursuing these policies too aggressively risks inducing middle class flight, but being too cautious squanders the opportunity to help more poor families. This paper presents a stylized dynamicoptimization model that captures this tension. With base-caseparameter values, cost considerations limit mobility programs before flight becomes excessive.
However, for modest departures reflecting stronger flight tendencies and/or weaker destination neighborhoods, other outcomes emerge. In particular, we find state-dependence and multiple equilibria, including both de-populated and oversized outcomes. For certain sets of parameters there exists a Skiba point that separates initial conditions for which the optimal strategy leads to substantial flight and depopulation from those for which the optimal strategy retains or even expands the middle class population. These results suggest the value of estimating middle-class neighborhoods' "carrying capacity" for absorbing mobility program placements and further modeling of dynamic response.

Author's Affiliation

• Jonathan P. Caulkins - Carnegie Mellon University, United States of America EMAIL
• Gustav Feichtinger - Vienna Institute of Demography (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Austria EMAIL
• Dieter Grass - Technische Universität Wien, Austria EMAIL
• Michael Johnson - Carnegie Mellon University, United States of America EMAIL
• Gernot Tragler - Technische Universität Wien, Austria EMAIL
• Yuri Yegorov - Institut für Höhere Studien – Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS), Austria EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

The optimal transition to a stationary population for concentrated vitality rates
Volume 50 - Article 6

How many old people have ever lived?
Volume 36 - Article 54

The reproductive value as part of the shadow price of population
Volume 24 - Article 28

Keeping a learned society young
Volume 20 - Article 22

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Partnership satisfaction in Czechia during the COVID-19 pandemic
Volume 49 - Article 24    | Keywords: COVID-19, family, pandemic, partnership, separation

Do the consequences of parental separation for children’s educational success vary by parental education? The role of educational thresholds
Volume 47 - Article 28    | Keywords: divorce, educational attainment, family, Germany, interaction, resource compensation, separation, sibling fixed effects

Metropolitan racial residential segregation in the United States: A microlevel and cross-context analysis of Black, Latino, and Asian segregation
Volume 46 - Article 8    | Keywords: assimilation, locational attainments, place, segmented assimilation, segregation, spatial assimilation, stratification

Who moves out and who keeps the home? Short-term and medium-term mobility consequences of grey divorce in Belgium
Volume 45 - Article 9    | Keywords: Belgium, divorce, housing, residential mobility, separation

Family life transitions, residential relocations, and housing in the life course: Current research and opportunities for future work: Introduction to the Special Collection on “Separation, Divorce, and Residential Mobility in a Comparative Perspective”
Volume 43 - Article 2    | Keywords: divorce, Europe, homeownership, housing, separation