Ending the cycle of poverty through socio-economic integration: A comparison of Moving to Opportunity (MTO) in the United States and the Bijlmermeer Revival Project in the Netherlands

In many advanced industrialized countries, one trend in housing programs has been to attempt to reduce the intergenerational transmission of poverty and other social problems through the “de-concentration” of urban poverty. In this article, we compare two re-location and urban renewal programs in the United States and the Netherlands, that we argue are based, in part, on assumptions about neighbourhood effects. This neighbourhood effects literature contends that living in close proximity to other impoverished people has a negative effect on the behaviour, dispositions, and welfare of low-income individuals, particularly children. Specifically, this article compares the “Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Experiment” (MTO) in the United States and the “Bijlmermeer Revitalization Project” in the Netherlands.The MTO and Bijlmermeer programs have demonstrated that a multifaceted approach to socio-spatial integration can provide significant social benefits to the poor. At the same time, these projects reveal that re-location policies must take into account these groups’ specific contexts in order to increase the likelihood of desired outcomes through such programs. The goal of reducing concentrations of poverty in urban centres should include opportunities for re-location, while simultaneously working towards the urban renewal of high poverty urban neighbourhoods. We argue that maintaining political and public support for urban poverty de-concentration programs requires further experimental, qualitative and quantitative research aimed at explaining the complex and non-linear relationship between urban concentrations of poverty and social problems. This would also allow for targeting of de-concentration efforts to improve social and economic opportunities for all.