Facing Segregation

Housing Policy Solutions for a Stronger Society

Edited by Molly W. Metzger and Henry S. Webber

Brings together a set of the United States' most important scholars, practitioners, and policy analysts to reflect on how to use public policy to reduce segregation
Couples the development of an agenda for reform in the current policy environment and the presentation of new approaches
Emphasizes policy with a clear focus on what can and must be done rather than solely describing the problem

Facing Segregation

Housing Policy Solutions for a Stronger Society

Edited by Molly W. Metzger and Henry S. Webber

Description

Evidence for the negative effects of segregation and concentrated poverty in America's cities now exists in abundance; poor and underrepresented communities in segregated urban housing markets suffer diminished outcomes in education, economic mobility, political participation, and physical and psychological health. Though many of the aggravating factors underlying this inequity have persisted or even grown worse in recent decades, the level of energy and attention devoted to them by local and national policymakers has ebbed significantly from that which inspired the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

Marking 50 years since the passage of the Fair Housing and Civil Rights Acts, Facing Segregation both builds on and departs from two generations of scholarship on urban development and inequality. Authors provide historical context for patterns of segregation in the United States and present arguments for bold new policy actions ranging from local innovations to national initiatives. The volume refocuses attention on achievable solutions by providing not only an overview of this timely subject, but a roadmap forward as the twenty-first century assesses the successes and failures of the housing policies inherited from the twentieth. Rather than introducing new theories or empirical data sets describing the urban landscape, Metzger and Webber have gathered the field's first collection of prescriptions for what ought to be done.

Facing Segregation

Housing Policy Solutions for a Stronger Society

Edited by Molly W. Metzger and Henry S. Webber

Part I: Facing the Causes and Consequences of Segregation

Chapter 1: Segregation: A Threat to Americans' Shared Goals
Molly W. Metzger and Henry S. Webber

Chapter 2: De Facto Segregation: A National Myth
Richard Rothstein

Chapter 3: The Siting Dilemma: Race and the Location of Federal Housing Projects
Lance Freeman

Chapter 4: The Enduring Significance of Segregation
Jason Q. Purnell

Part II: The Policy Agenda

Chapter 5: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing and the Inclusive Communities Project Case: Bringing the Fair Housing Act into the Twenty-First Century
Philip D. Tegeler

Chapter 6: Enabling More Families with Housing Vouchers to Access Higher-Opportunity Neighborhoods
Barbara Sard

Chapter 7: The Community Reinvestment Act as a Catalyst for Integration and an Antidote to Concentrated Poverty
John Taylor and Josh Silver

Chapter 8: Promoting Poverty Deconcentration and Racial Desegregation Through Mixed-Income Development
Mark L. Joseph

Chapter 9: Market-Savvy Housing and Community Development Policy: Grappling with the Equity-Efficiency Trade-Off
Todd Swanstrom

Chapter 10: Financing Affordability: Tax Increment Financing and the Potential for Concentrated Reinvestment
Sarah L. Coffin

Chapter 11: Beyond Education Triage: Building Brain Regimes in Metropolitan America
William F. Tate IV

Chapter 12: Concluding Thoughts on an Agenda for Solving Segregation
Henry S. Webber and Molly W. Metzger

Facing Segregation

Housing Policy Solutions for a Stronger Society

Edited by Molly W. Metzger and Henry S. Webber

Author Information

Molly W. Metzger, PhD, is assistant professor in the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Metzger's research focuses on public policy, structural racism, and residential segregation in the United States. She is a community-engaged scholar, working with housing advocates in the St. Louis region to bring an evidence-based approach to activism.

Henry S. (Hank) Webber, MPP, is executive vice chancellor and chief administrative officer at Washington University in St. Louis. He is also professor of practice at the Brown School and the School of Architecture and Urban Design. Mr. Webber's research and writing center on community development, mixed-income housing, racial and economic segregation, and the role of anchor institutions in urban development.

Contributors:

Molly W. Metzger
Henry S. (Hank) Webber

Sarah L. Coffin
Mark L. Joseph
Lance Freeman
Jason Q. Purnell
Richard Rothstein
Barbara Sard
Michael Sherraden
Josh Silver
Todd Swanstrom
William F. Tate IV
John Taylor
Philip Tegeler

Facing Segregation

Housing Policy Solutions for a Stronger Society

Edited by Molly W. Metzger and Henry S. Webber

Reviews and Awards

"Facing Segregation: Housing Policy Solutions for a Stronger Society is an excellent volume of essays on pragmatic, evidence-based policy prescriptions for combatting racial and economic residential segregation in the United States. Editors Molly W. Metzger and Henry S.Webber have assembled a cohesive,complementary, and comprehensive collection of background essays and forwardthinking policy proposals." -- Jeffrey M. Timberlake, University of Cincinnati, Contemporary Sociology

"Metzger and Webber have edited materials from a 2015 conference on inclusive housing hosted at the Center for Social Development in the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis where they are on faculty. Their book is about residential segregation in America, its harms, and potential solutions. It advocates for the social value of integration that they call living together-the intentional racial and economic desegregation of American communities to promote economic growth, strengthen democracy, and enhance equal opportunity." -- Peter A. Kindle, Journal of social Work Values and Ethics

"With so many excellent compilations coinciding with or commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, Facing Segregation isa compelling volume. The editors' goal is to "contribute to making the United States a country where people live together in neighborhoods that are racially and economically diverse..." ...Despite the ritualistic handwringing to which we have grown accustomed, several features of this book strike me as exceptional, noteworthy, and, indeed, inspiring." -- Journal of Affordable Housing

"For those who believe that racial segregation in cities is solely the product of 'individual prejudices' and choices, this volume of essays reintroduces us to how our country's housing policies intentionally manufactured segregation to retain race and class hierarchies, a legacy that our neighborhoods still reflect 154 years removed from a race-based servitude economy." -Toni L. Griffin, Professor in Practice on Urban Planning, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Harvard University

"Edited and written by distinguished scholars, Facing Segregation makes a brilliant and comprehensive case for why continuing racial and economic segregation is harmful to the nation, and promotes policies that can be effective in creating more inclusionary communities, ones that benefit all Americans." -Paul C. Brophy, Principal, Brophy & Reilly LLC

"Taken together, these essays lay out the reality that segregation is not a periphery problem for cities like St. Louis or for the country. Rather, solving segregation is a cornerstone to progress in every measure of the nation's health." -St. Louis American

Facing Segregation

Housing Policy Solutions for a Stronger Society

Edited by Molly W. Metzger and Henry S. Webber

From Our Blog

Why American cities remain segregated 50 years after the Fair Housing Act

Fifty years after passage of the Fair Housing Act, large urban areas still remain highly segregated by both race and income. A report last year in the Washington Post concluded that that although the United States is on track to be a minority-majority nation by 2044, most of us have neighbors that are the same race as us.

Posted on August 16, 2019

Read the blog post