This paper studies one of the largest spatially targeted redevelopment efforts implemented in the United States: public housing demolitions sponsored by the HOPE VI program. Focusing on Chicago, we study welfare and racial disparities in the impacts of demolitions using a structural model that...

We show that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), from its inception in the 1930s, did not insure mortgages in low income urban neighborhoods where the vast majority of urban Black Americans lived. The agency evaluated neighborhoods using block-level information collected by New Deal relief...

During the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. government closely regulated the single-family housing finance system. The regulation manifested itself in a highly specialized system with four notable characteristics: portfolio restrictions against investments in corporate assets, tax inducements to invest...

We provide evidence of intensified discriminatory behavior by landlords in the rental housing market during the eviction moratoria instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data collected from an experiment that involved more than 25,000 inquiries of landlords in the 50 largest cities in...

Using data compiled from concentrated residential urban revitalization programs implemented in Richmond, VA, between 1999 and 2004, we study residential externalities. Specifically, we provide evidence that in neighborhoods targeted by the programs, sites that did not directly benefit from...

Many observers argue that urban revitalization harms the poor, primarily by raising rents. Others argue that urban decline harms the poor by reducing job opportunities, the quality of local public services, and other neighborhood amenities. While both decay and revitalization can have negative...

Historical city growth, in the United States and worldwide, has required remarkable transformation of outdated durable buildings. Private land-use decisions may generate inefficiencies, however, due to externalities and various rigidities. This paper analyzes new plot-level data in the aftermath...

In Beijing, the metropolitan government has made enormous place based investments to increase green space and to improve public transit. We examine the gentrification consequences of such public investments. Using unique geocoded real estate and restaurant data, we document that the construction...

In many recent location choice models, households randomly vary with respect to their utility of living in a location. We demonstrate that the distribution generating this randomness is fundamentally not identifiable from location choice data and as a result the optimal allocation as chosen by a...

This paper surveys the effects of two of the most important federal policies toward housing: the "implicit subsidy" for owner-occupied housing in the income tax code, and the provision of housing for low income families at rents below cost. Emphasis is placed on the methodological problems that...