Summer Issue 2021 - 88

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CHRISTOPHER PTOMEY
BOOK REVIEW
Furthering
Fair Housing:
Prospects for
Racial Justice
in America's
Neighborhoods
While the global COVID-19 pandemic
will undoubtedly be the story that historians
associate with 2020, it may not be the 2020
event that drives the most social change in
the United States. The Black Lives Matter
movement has forced cities to reckon with
issues of racial justice far beyond discriminatory
policing and police violence, including
the ongoing struggle for fair housing,
which has always been about much more
than access to basic shelter.
At the household level, fair housing is
about resident and family success, and at
the societal level, it is about what and whom
we value as a nation. In Furthering Fair Housing:
Prospects for Racial Justice in America's
Neighborhoods (2021, Temple University
Press), influential housing thought leaders
delve into the history of the fair housing and
community development movements that
have worked to improve housing opportunity
for nonwhite households and provide perspectives
on potential pathways forward.
The opening section of this collection of
essays focuses on the " promises " of fair
housing, providing the context and history
that led first to the passage of the Fair
Housing Act of 1968 and taking a deep
dive into the process to implement the
act's " Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing "
(AFFH) rule at the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
over 40 years after the act's passage. The
AFFH requires HUD and recipients of federal
housing funds to undertake efforts to
reduce patterns of housing segregation and
to build inclusive communities, in addition
to fighting racial discrimination in housing.
Authors Nicholas Kelly, Maia Woluchem,
CHRISTOPHER PTOMEY is executive director of the
ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing.
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URBAN LAND
Reed Jordan, and Justin Steil argue that
local fair housing assessments submitted
to HUD by 49 local jurisdictions as part
of the AFFH process before it was suspended
demonstrated the rule's potential
for generating solutions. The assessments
" put forward a range of creative goals to
affirmatively further fair housing, including
measurable objectives and innovative
policies intended to make access
to place-based resources, such as highperforming
schools or access to jobs, more
SUMMER 20 21
equitable. " They note that further research
on effectiveness is needed. The Biden
administration plans to reaffirm the federal
commitment to the AFFH rule without
requiring the local assessments that critics
considered overly burdensome.
A section on " protests " offers perspectives
on the competing place-based initiatives of
the community development organizations
and spatial strategies of the fair housing
movement. Howard Husock suggests that
the AFFH is impractical at scale due to the
" difficulty of tailoring policy such that those
most likely to benefit are targeted by the
program. " More important, in his view, " environmental
determinism, " the notion that the
zip code in which one is raised is predictive
of life outcomes, has " undermined the
social and physical capital of lower-income
neighborhoods, undermined minority asset
building, and, in effect, resisted the idea . . .
that poor neighborhoods can be good neighborhoods. "
For Husock, a more successful
approach would " provide high-quality public
goods associated with 'better' neighborhoods
. . . rather than . . . quixotic attempts . . .
to move to more affluent neighborhoods. "
Edward Goetz's critique highlights the
tension between reducing residential racial
segregation and achieving other housing
goals, including improving affordability and
access to jobs, education, and services.
Goetz is particularly critical of fair housing
advocates' efforts to resist construction of
subsidized housing in communities willing
to build it, rather than focusing activism
on communities that oppose and exclude
subsidized housing.
A final group of essays looks at fair
housing's " prospects. " Michael Lens
makes a compelling case for including
crime data in fair housing assessments.
The book offers timely and informative
perspectives on the history and future of
the AFFH and the competing place-based
community development and fair housing
spatial strategies. It is a worthwhile
investment of time for anyone interested in
the relationship of development, housing,
racial justice, and household and community
success. UL
Summer Issue 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Summer Issue 2021
