Housing inequality
Encyclopedia
Housing inequality refers to the differences in the quality of housing
that exist within a given society
. It has implications for the options available to an individual or family
and tends to focus on the negative aspects of inequality
. The term may apply regionally across a geographic space, temporally between one generation
and the next, or culturally between groups of varying racial or social backgrounds. Housing inequality is directly related to concepts of racial inequality
, Social inequality
, income inequality
, and wealth inequality
.
In addition, it is the result of a number of different factors including natural market forces
, Housing discrimination, and Housing Segregation
. Housing inequality is also often linked to discussions of Poverty
. This is because it can be seen as both a cause and an effect of poverty. Residential inequality is especially relevant to discussions of poverty when considering Amartya Sen
’s definition of poverty as “the deprivation of basic capabilities”.
. This is due to the fact that disparities in housing explain variations in the conversion of income into human capabilities
over differing social climates. Put more simply, income does not always translate to desirable outcomes like healthcare, education, and happiness. The quality of one’s housing is one factor that determines if such capabilities are readily available to an individual. Amartya Sen reasons that an individual’s available freedoms, or capabilities, are significant indicators of the kind of life one values or has reason to value.
explains urban residential inequality as a result of natural housing market forces. Yinger reasons that, all else being equal, housing becomes relatively more expensive as it grows closer to work sites. Because poorer families often cannot afford to pay transportation costs they may be forced to live in inner-city locations closer to employment opportunities. Consequently in order to the win the spatial competition for housing near work sites, lower-income families must compensate for high priced location by accepting smaller housing, lower quality housing, or both. Ultimately these market forces are subject to other socio-economic factors as no single cause can explain housing inequality.
In the United States, Thomas Shapiro
and Jessica Kenty-Drane point to the wealth gaps between African Americans and other groups in the United States as likely causes of the housing disparity between African Americans and the rest of America. The pair contends that obstacles exist that have prevented blacks from accumulating wealth. Historical factors such as slavery and racial segregation, the two argue, have constrained African Americans from securing and accumulating assets. As a result, African Americans have had a difficult time acquiring high quality housing.
Yinger also suggests that racial discrimination
still plays a role in housing searches. According to Yinger, black and Hispanic households must pay higher search costs, accept lower quality housing, and live in lower quality neighborhoods due to discrimination in the search process. One study found that 20% of potential moves made by black households and 17% of potential moves made by Hispanic households were discouraged by existing discrimination within the housing search process.
s, the amount of Air pollution
, the Crime rate
, and the quality of local schools. A neighborhood with a certain quality of amenities typically includes individual residences of corresponding quality. It follows then that those with lower incomes usually end up living in areas with poor amenities in order to win the spatial competition
for housing. Apart from the intrinsic value of neighborhood amenities like the satisfaction derived from living in a nice area, many studies suggest that growing up in a high poverty neighborhood affects social and economic outcomes later in life.
Another way that the poor compete in the spatial competition for housing is by rent
ing homes rather than buying them. This furthers the negative effects of housing inequality by restricting access to household wealth
. The effects of housing inequality are necessarily related to economic inequality as they greatly affect the freedoms available to an individual.
and the move to metropolitan areas. International housing inequality is largely characterized by urban disparities. A 2007 UN-HABITAT report estimated that over one billion people worldwide lived in slum
s at the time, with that figure expected to double by 2030.
In developing countries, housing inequality is increasingly caused by rural-to-urban migration, increasing urban poverty and inequality, insecure tenure, and globalization. All of these factors contribute to the creation and continuation of slums in poorer areas of the world. One proposed solution to slums has been proposed in the form of Slum upgrading
.
House
A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
that exist within a given society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
. It has implications for the options available to an individual or family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
and tends to focus on the negative aspects of inequality
Inequality
In mathematics, an inequality is a statement how the relative size or order of two objects, or about whether they are the same or not .*The notation a b means that a is greater than b....
. The term may apply regionally across a geographic space, temporally between one generation
Generation
Generation , also known as procreation in biological sciences, is the act of producing offspring....
and the next, or culturally between groups of varying racial or social backgrounds. Housing inequality is directly related to concepts of racial inequality
Racism in the United States
Racism in the United States has been a major issue since the colonial era and the slave era. Legally sanctioned racism imposed a heavy burden on Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latin Americans...
, Social inequality
Social inequality
Social inequality refers to a situation in which individual groups in a society do not have equal social status. Areas of potential social inequality include voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, the extent of property rights and access to education, health care, quality housing and other...
, income inequality
Income inequality in the United States
Income inequality in the United States of America refers to the extent to which income is distributed in an uneven manner in the US. Data from the United States Department of Commerce, CBO, and Internal Revenue Service indicate that income inequality among households has been increasing...
, and wealth inequality
Wealth inequality in the United States
Wealth inequality in the United States, also known as the "wealth gap", refers to the unequal distribution of financial assets among residents of the United States. Wealth includes the values of homes, automobiles, businesses, savings, and investments. Those who acquire a great deal of financial...
.
In addition, it is the result of a number of different factors including natural market forces
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
, Housing discrimination, and Housing Segregation
Housing Segregation
Housing Segregation is the practice of denying African American or other minority groups equal access to housing through the process of misinformation, denial of realty and financing services, and racial steering. Misinformation can take the form of realtors or landlords not giving African American...
. Housing inequality is also often linked to discussions of Poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
. This is because it can be seen as both a cause and an effect of poverty. Residential inequality is especially relevant to discussions of poverty when considering Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
’s definition of poverty as “the deprivation of basic capabilities”.
Relation to economic inequality
Housing inequality is a type of Economic inequalityEconomic inequality
Economic inequality comprises all disparities in the distribution of economic assets and income. The term typically refers to inequality among individuals and groups within a society, but can also refer to inequality among countries. The issue of economic inequality is related to the ideas of...
. This is due to the fact that disparities in housing explain variations in the conversion of income into human capabilities
Capability approach
The capability approach was initially conceived in the 1980s as an approach to welfare economics....
over differing social climates. Put more simply, income does not always translate to desirable outcomes like healthcare, education, and happiness. The quality of one’s housing is one factor that determines if such capabilities are readily available to an individual. Amartya Sen reasons that an individual’s available freedoms, or capabilities, are significant indicators of the kind of life one values or has reason to value.
Causes
John YingerJohn Milton Yinger
John Milton Yinger was an American sociologist who was president of the American Sociological Association 1976-1977. Yinger received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1942, and was Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Oberlin College.-Biography :Yinger was born in Quincy,...
explains urban residential inequality as a result of natural housing market forces. Yinger reasons that, all else being equal, housing becomes relatively more expensive as it grows closer to work sites. Because poorer families often cannot afford to pay transportation costs they may be forced to live in inner-city locations closer to employment opportunities. Consequently in order to the win the spatial competition for housing near work sites, lower-income families must compensate for high priced location by accepting smaller housing, lower quality housing, or both. Ultimately these market forces are subject to other socio-economic factors as no single cause can explain housing inequality.
In the United States, Thomas Shapiro
Thomas Shapiro
Thomas M. Shapiro is a professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Brandeis University and is the author The Hidden Cost of Being African American and the co-author of Black Wealth/White Wealth. Shapiro's current professional titles include the Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy and the...
and Jessica Kenty-Drane point to the wealth gaps between African Americans and other groups in the United States as likely causes of the housing disparity between African Americans and the rest of America. The pair contends that obstacles exist that have prevented blacks from accumulating wealth. Historical factors such as slavery and racial segregation, the two argue, have constrained African Americans from securing and accumulating assets. As a result, African Americans have had a difficult time acquiring high quality housing.
Yinger also suggests that racial discrimination
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
still plays a role in housing searches. According to Yinger, black and Hispanic households must pay higher search costs, accept lower quality housing, and live in lower quality neighborhoods due to discrimination in the search process. One study found that 20% of potential moves made by black households and 17% of potential moves made by Hispanic households were discouraged by existing discrimination within the housing search process.
Effects
The most direct effect of residential inequality is an inequality of neighborhood amenities. Neighborhood amenities include factors such as the conditions of surrounding houses, the availability of social networkSocial network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
s, the amount of Air pollution
Air pollution
Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment or built environment, into the atmosphere....
, the Crime rate
Crime statistics
Crime statistics attempt to provide statistical measures of the crime in societies. Given that crime is usually secretive by nature, measurements of it are likely to be inaccurate....
, and the quality of local schools. A neighborhood with a certain quality of amenities typically includes individual residences of corresponding quality. It follows then that those with lower incomes usually end up living in areas with poor amenities in order to win the spatial competition
Spatial mismatch
Spatial mismatch is the sociological, economic and political phenomenon associated with economic restructuring in which employment opportunities for low-income people are located far away from the areas where they live...
for housing. Apart from the intrinsic value of neighborhood amenities like the satisfaction derived from living in a nice area, many studies suggest that growing up in a high poverty neighborhood affects social and economic outcomes later in life.
Another way that the poor compete in the spatial competition for housing is by rent
Renting
Renting is an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property owned by another. A gross lease is when the tenant pays a flat rental amount and the landlord pays for all property charges regularly incurred by the ownership from landowners...
ing homes rather than buying them. This furthers the negative effects of housing inequality by restricting access to household wealth
Personal finance
Personal finance is the application of the principles of finance to the monetary decisions of an individual or family unit. It addresses the ways in which individuals or families obtain, budget, save, and spend monetary resources over time, taking into account various financial risks and future...
. The effects of housing inequality are necessarily related to economic inequality as they greatly affect the freedoms available to an individual.
Proposed remedies
There have been a number of plans proposed to remedy the negative effects of housing inequality. Such plans include:- Subsidized housing
- Co-operative housing
- Non-profit housing
- Rent supplements
- Private sector housingSection 8 (housing)Section 8 of the United States Housing Act of 1937 , as repeatedly amended, authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of approximately 3.1 million low-income households...
- Fair lending enforcementPredatory lendingPredatory lending describes unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent practices of some lenders during the loan origination process. While there are no legal definitions in the United States for predatory lending, an audit report on predatory lending from the office of inspector general of the FDIC broadly...
- Scattered site housingPublic housing in the United StatesPublic housing in the United States has been administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized assistance for low-income and people living in poverty. Now increasingly provided in a variety of settings and formats, originally public housing in the U.S...
International housing inequality
While the focus of housing inequality has changed over time, contemporary international analyses tend to center on UrbanizationUrbanization
Urbanization, urbanisation or urban drift is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change. The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008....
and the move to metropolitan areas. International housing inequality is largely characterized by urban disparities. A 2007 UN-HABITAT report estimated that over one billion people worldwide lived in slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...
s at the time, with that figure expected to double by 2030.
In developing countries, housing inequality is increasingly caused by rural-to-urban migration, increasing urban poverty and inequality, insecure tenure, and globalization. All of these factors contribute to the creation and continuation of slums in poorer areas of the world. One proposed solution to slums has been proposed in the form of Slum upgrading
Slum upgrading
Slum upgrading consists of physical, social, economic, organizational and environmental improvements to slums undertaken cooperatively and locally among citizens, community groups, businesses and local authorities.The main objective of slum upgrading is to alleviate the poor living standards of...
.