The Spatial Concentration of Subsidized Housing - Poverty & Race ...

from the nine matched neighborhood property value studies to draw conclusions andonly four of seventeen hedonic price studies were found to be methodologically sound(p. 368). They identify only one study (Freeman 2001) that used a sound methodologywith appropriate controls and contrary to previous studies found no effect on propertyvalues. The authors conclude that earlier study results which ranged from slightlynegative to large positive effects were not reliable. The authors suggest that futurestudies use appropriate multi-level models, include household level controls, controlsfor variation between different types of neighborhoods and include information on thedesign of the subsidized housing.Galster and Zobel (1998) conducted a theoretical and meta-analysis of existingstudies including 1) case studies of participants in dispersion programs; 2) statisticalstudies on the impact on property values; and 3) statistical studies on neighborhoodsand behavior. The authors conclude that there will be benefits to the overall system ifpeople move out of high poverty areas into the lowest poverty areas but there was littleempirical evidence in support of housing dispersal on neighborhood poverty or socialbehaviors.Many of the earlier studies on site-based subsidized housing have beencriticized for improper research designs which did not control for household level data(Freeman and Botein, 2000; Nguyen, 2000). One study that did control for householdlevel effects was conducted by Freeman (2003) which linked geocoded Panel Study ofIncome Dynamics (PSID) longitudinal household level data with 1997 site-based9