A National Bureau of Economic Research working paper from a Harvard, Census Bureau, and Cornell team quantifies the long-run effects of HOPE VI, the federal program that redeveloped 262 distressed public housing sites between 1993 and 2010. Using anonymized tax and Census records, the researchers separate neighborhood-level improvement from outcomes for the children who grew up in the revitalized neighborhoods.
Specifically, the NBER research found that:
- Federal HOPE VI investment totaled 17 billion dollars across 262 distressed public housing developments between 1993 and 2010.
- Children who moved into HOPE VI neighborhoods post-revitalization earned 16 percent more in adulthood than a matched comparison group and were 17 percent more likely to attend college.
- Boys who grew up in post-revitalization HOPE VI neighborhoods were 20 percent less likely to be incarcerated as adults.
Methodology and Context
The team applied a matched "difference in differences" design to anonymized federal tax records and Census Bureau data, comparing HOPE VI sites against matched control neighborhoods on adult earnings, college attendance, and incarceration for both pre-revitalization residents and children who arrived after revitalization. The design isolates the effects on rising cohorts from the effects on the original resident population.
