Mixed-Income Housing Developments: Separating Myth from Reality

Abstract

Mixed-income housing has long been promoted as a panacea to the largely-failed social housing experiments of the mid-twentieth century. However, more often than not, the social mix philosophy leads to more problems than it solves. It amounts to a spatial solution to what are complex social and spatial problems. Moreover, the support for this approach calls into question its true motives: is it intended to truly benefit low-income populations or is it merely a form of stealth gentrification? A better solution would be to identify assets within existing low-income housing developments and increase investments in a targeted fashion, rather than expecting benefits to trickle down.