This article explores the relationship between political and civic participation and the pursuit of sustainability in American cities. Some have argued that cities that exhibit more participation, engagement, and bridging social capital are more likely to pursue policies and programs designed to achieve greater sustainability. Others have posited alternative explanations, especially explanations related to resources, socioeconomic status, and economic growth. Using the Social Capital Benchmark Survey cities—10 of which have extensive sustainability programs, 5 of which have modest programs, and 12 of which have virtually no sustainability programs at all—as the source of comparison, this research finds that cities that are most committed to pursuing sustainability policies do tend to be more participatory places with respect to signing petitions, participating in demonstrations, belonging to local reform groups, and joining neighborhood associations, even controlling for personal income and other factors.

In the United States, public housing developments are predominantly located in neighborhoods with low median incomes, high rates of poverty and disproportionate concentrations of minorities. While research consistently shows that public housing developments are located in economically and socially disadvantaged neighborhoods, we know little about the characteristics of the schools serving students living in public housing. In this paper, we examine the characteristics of elementary and middle schools attended by students living in public housing developments in New York City. Using the proportion of public housing students attending each elementary and middle school as our weight, we calculate the weighted average of school characteristics to describe the typical school attended by students living in public housing. We then compare these characteristics to those of the typical school attended by other students throughout the city in an effort to assess whether students living in public housing attend systematically different schools than other students. We find no large differences between the resources of the schools attended by students living in public housing and the schools attended by their peers living elsewhere in the city; however, we find significant differences in student characteristics and performance on standardized exams. These school differences, however, fail to fully explain the performance disparities amongst students. Our results point to a need for more nuanced analyses of the policies and practices in schools, as well as the outside-of-school factors that shape educational success, to identify and address the needs of students in public housing.

The living conditions of the urban poor have dramatically changed in Chile in the past two decades. On one hand, through a massive program of investment in subsidized housing, more than a million Chileans have moved out from slums and shantytowns and become property owners. On the other, youth violence, drug trafficking, and other social maladies are increasing in many neighborhoods. It appears that home ownership has not been enough to overcome marginality and disintegration. Moreover, in some cases, moving to subsidized housing projects contributes to increased social problems, especially those related to violence and disintegration. To acquire knowledge about shantytown living conditions and the changes attendant to the move to home ownership, six focus groups were conducted with former residents of La Toma de Peñalolén, the last important slum remaining in Santiago and eliminated in 2006. This article analyzes the ways in which residents who have moved out from a shantytown compare the houses and neighborhood in which they used to live with their current setting. It analyzes the changes and continuities in living conditions and the aspects of shantytown living that former residents remember as valuable. The article ends with a discussion regarding the conditions of home ownership, social control, stigmatization, and the identity and value transformation residents have experienced.

The Mayors Caucus began as a forum to foster cooperation among the municipalities in the Chicago metropolitan region. After its establishment, the Mayors Caucus became a regional stakeholder, representing the mayors in coalitions with the region’s civic organizations, developing a legislative action team to pass legislation in the Illinois General Assembly, and serving as a forum for regional consensus building. This research is a case study of the development of the Mayors Caucus as a new institution established to overcome the region’s extreme government fragmentation and decades of city—suburban hostility.

A key aspect of the U.S. subprime crisis was the accumulation of vacant, foreclosed properties in many neighborhoods and localities. This article describes zip-code-level patterns of foreclosed homes, or what are typically called "real estate owned" (REO) properties, at the peak of the subprime crisis in late 2008 and estimates a model of REO accumulation from 2006 to 2008. Three key findings emerge. First, during the peak of the subprime foreclosure crisis in late 2008, large central cities, on average, experienced higher levels of REO per mortgageable property than suburban areas. This contradicts some suggestions that the crisis was primarily centered in suburban or exurban communities. Second, the suburbanization of REO varied across two key types of metropolitan areas, with boom—bust regions experiencing more suburbanization than weak- or mixed-market metros. Finally, determinants of zip-code-level REO accumulation included high-risk lending activity and the age of housing stock. After controlling for these and other variables, neither the central city versus suburban location of a zip code nor the proportion of residents commuting over 30 minutes was significantly associated with REO growth. The intrametropolitan location of a zip code appears to have been a less important factor in REO growth than the fact that a large amount of development in newer communities was financed during the subprime boom.