Creating and Sustaining Successful Mixed-Income Communities

Abstract

This article examines the theory and evidence behind the increased policy and scholarly interest in the role that schools might play in promoting neighborhood revitalization, focuses on the extent to which schools might be a key component in the growing efforts across the country to address urban poverty by creating and sustaining mixed-income neighborhoods, identifies five channels through which investment in high-quality public schools might help facilitate the types of neighborhood- and individual-level outcomes sought through mixed-income development, explores the theoretical arguments behind these pathways, and draws on research to assess the potential value of each. The article concludes that schools can play unique roles as amenities, local resources, and forums for interaction and collective action, but leveraging that potential value for the benefit of everyone, including those in poverty, will require impeding real estate market forces and surmounting differences in parental school expectations and engagement associated with socioeconomic status.