Who Benefits from Neighborhood Revitalization?

We investigate how a large place-based policy, the HOPE VI Revitalization program, affected people and places. The program sought to benefit people living in high-poverty neighborhoods by transforming these places into mixed-income communities through the demolition of public housing projects and the construction of new housing. We find that the program led to a large decline in neighborhood poverty rates, driven by changes in who moved into the neighborhood after a Revitalization award. Within five years of an award most original residents had moved away and were not exposed to the changed neighborhoods. The program reduced the number of subsidized renters in targeted neighborhoods, but those able to find a unit after an award lived in lower poverty neighborhoods. We find no evidence to suggest that the program had large spillover effects on the poverty rates of other neighborhoods.