Distinguished Speaker 2018

“Housing Policy and the O-Word: Getting Beyond the Mistakes and Constraints of the ‘Opportunity’ Paradigm”

The speaker series is supported by a generous gift from Merritt Community Capital Corporation.

Abstract:  The concept of “opportunity neighborhoods” has dominated housing policy in the U.S. for many years now. The idea of channeling assisted households to such neighborhoods is almost universally and enthusiastically embraced by liberal policy-makers and housing policy think tanks, the Fair Housing movement, and by a good percentage of housing researchers.  Though this idea emerged from legitimate concerns about the interaction of housing investments and neighborhood conditions, Goetz argues that we are at a point where the term obscures as much as it illuminates, and reflects more than a little paternalism, undervalues the agency of people living in low-wealth communities, and under-appreciates the need for and misinterprets the role of housing investment in low-wealth communities.

Bio

Dr. Edward G. Goetz is director of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, and professor of urban planning at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota.  He specializes in housing and local community development, and how issues of race and poverty affect housing policy, planning, and development.  His most recent books are The One Way Street of Integration: Fair Housing and the Pursuit of Racial Justice in American Cities (2018, Cornell University Press), New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice and Public Housing Policy (2013, Cornell University Press), and Clearing the Way: Deconcentrating the Poor in Urban America (2003, Urban Institute Press).