From <i>Gautreaux</i> to MTO: Racial Discipline and Neoliberal Governance in Housing Policy

Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Rogers, Christy Lee
Language:	English
Published:	The Ohio State University / OhioLINK 2011
Subjects:	Geography neoliberalism race Foucault housing policy concentrated poverty
Online Access:	http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1304703290

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spelling	ndltd-OhioLink-oai-etd.ohiolink.edu-osu13047032902021-08-03T06:02:41Z From <i>Gautreaux</i> to MTO: Racial Discipline and Neoliberal Governance in Housing Policy Rogers, Christy Lee Geography neoliberalism race Foucault housing policy concentrated poverty <p>This dissertation explores the shift in public housing voucher policy from the residential integration remedy of the 1976 Supreme Court case <i>Hills v. Gautreaux</i> to the Congressional poverty deconcentration and research program, Moving to Opportunity (1994-1998). The shift away from racial integration as a policy goal occurred in tandem with the large scale privatization of affordable rental housing and the rapid expansion of the secondary mortgage market. This dissertation argues that the “deracialization” of public housing policy was closely related to its privatization, and to the increasing policy and academic focus on neighborhoods of concentrated poverty.</p><p>The analysis utilizes the work of Michel Foucault to link these developments in U.S. housing policy. Foucault argues that one of the ways the neoliberal state can recede from direct governance is to help identify and expel “weaker” populations to the discipline of the private market. For Foucault, weakness can be expressed in terms of race, but also in terms of other markers of difference. In contrast, critical race theorists maintain that race is still tied to, and expressed in, an historical landscape of racist exclusions and segregations. I argue that race in the U.S. is anchored in particular, historically enacted spaces of color and exclusion, but must also be theorized in a neoliberal age as the documentation/ creation of economically non-normative populations as objects for intervention. </p><p>Using this conceptual framework, I review the federal role in the creation of racially segregated neighborhoods and credit markets. I address the <i>Gautreaux</i> ruling in its contemporaneous context (the War on Poverty, the Moynihan and Kerner Reports, and the Fair Housing Act), to show the motivation to address racial residential segregation in <i>Gautreaux</i> focused largely on the need to improve black male access to jobs. I review the sociology studies of concentrated poverty, including the MTO findings. I find that the problem that <i>Gautreaux</i> was supposed to solve was rearticulated in MTO as immersion in problematic space, neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. The implicit neoliberal policy logic is that these neighborhoods are socio-spatial collections of individuals exhibiting economic choices in need of reform. The spatial threat of the “weaker species” is illustrated early on by Civil Rights-era policies like the Fair Housing Act, which was intended to allow middle-class black families to escape to the suburbs, and later by the “neighborhood effects” research on those left behind. </p><p>Although Civil Rights-era policymakers and sociologists often called for expanded, affirmative government intervention to integrate black male job seekers into mainstream labor and housing markets, a limited framing of racialized opportunity and a focus on concentrated poverty neighborhoods was used to subsequently shrink government activity to the point that the state in many ways retreated from integrated housing, and indeed, from public and affordable housing altogether. I conclude that the limited goals of smaller housing mobility programs like MTO are continually rendered insignificant by contradictory private market housing policies that increase racial segregation and exploitation, paralyzing or punishing many people attempting to “move to opportunity” or to buy a home.</p> 2011-07-20 English text The Ohio State University / OhioLINK http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1304703290 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1304703290 unrestricted This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.
collection	NDLTD
language	English
sources	NDLTD
topic	Geography neoliberalism race Foucault housing policy concentrated poverty
spellingShingle	Geography neoliberalism race Foucault housing policy concentrated poverty Rogers, Christy Lee From <i>Gautreaux</i> to MTO: Racial Discipline and Neoliberal Governance in Housing Policy
author	Rogers, Christy Lee
author_facet	Rogers, Christy Lee
author_sort	Rogers, Christy Lee
title	From <i>Gautreaux</i> to MTO: Racial Discipline and Neoliberal Governance in Housing Policy
title_short	From <i>Gautreaux</i> to MTO: Racial Discipline and Neoliberal Governance in Housing Policy
title_full	From <i>Gautreaux</i> to MTO: Racial Discipline and Neoliberal Governance in Housing Policy
title_fullStr	From <i>Gautreaux</i> to MTO: Racial Discipline and Neoliberal Governance in Housing Policy
title_full_unstemmed	From <i>Gautreaux</i> to MTO: Racial Discipline and Neoliberal Governance in Housing Policy
title_sort	from <i>gautreaux</i> to mto: racial discipline and neoliberal governance in housing policy
publisher	The Ohio State University / OhioLINK
publishDate	2011
url	http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1304703290
work_keys_str_mv	AT rogerschristylee fromigautreauxitomtoracialdisciplineandneoliberalgovernanceinhousingpolicy
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From <i>Gautreaux</i> to MTO: Racial Discipline and Neoliberal Governance in Housing Policy

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