ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors describe the views of 10 individual, or teams of, policy critics. Each critique is also interesting for a policy dimension that is given little emphasis—characteristics of housing and how the supply of housing influences residential location decisions and the spatial distribution of affluence, poverty, and middle-income households. The tendency for metropolitan areas to sprawl at low densities into exurban rural territories, consuming farmland at a rapid pace, is well documented. Spatial configurations are not primary causes of poverty, although they may have some effects by creating obstacles for some residents to commute from home to potential work sites. However, concentrations exacerbate the consequences of poverty. Therefore, they contribute to transferring poverty to the next generation of people who grow up in high-poverty ghettos. Myron Orfield has documented that taxable resource inequalities among local governments are large and have increased. Moreover, some suburbs are worse off than central cities.
