Publication: Moving to Opportunity: the Political Effects of a Housing Mobility Experiment
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Date
2012
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Sage Publications
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Citation
Gay, Claudine. 2012. Moving to opportunity: the political effects of a housing mobility experiment. Urban Affairs Review 48(2): 147-179.
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Abstract
In 1994, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development launched the Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration Program (MTO), a lottery that offered poor families vouchers to move out of public housing into private apartments. Drawing on recently collected vote history data, this study reveals that MTO has had the unintended consequence of reducing voter turnout among participating adults. The low turnout may be due to the loss of social ties that accompanied mobility. The findings suggest that residential mobility, a popular tool in the fight against poverty, may strain poor Americans’ weak ties to the political system.
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Keywords
MTO, poverty, mobility, neighborhoods, political participation
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