Attracting the rich to poor neighborhoods

Management summary The phenomenon “problem neighborhoods” has been at the attention of Dutch media and politics for many years. One way the government tries to improve these poor, problematic neighborhoods is by encouraging the middle class – and to a lesser extent people of the high income groups – to move into them. When this indeed occurs, a situation comes into being that we refer to as “mixed income living”. According to the literature, mixed income living may result in a number of effects: improved educational prospects, lower unemployment rates, lower crime rates, more and better public and private facilities, a better neighborhood appearance and a changed social cohesion. However, in the statistical analysis we ran, only a lower unemployment rate and a better neighborhood appearance (measured by property value) show up to be effects of mixed income living. It should be noted that the statistical analysis is based on a rather high level of analysis and hence, the outcomes are questionable. Besides a statistical analysis, we also performed multiple qualitative case studies concerning mixed income projects in Rotterdam – the Wallisblok, Le Medi and the Zijdewindestraat. According to these case studies, mixed income projects improve a neighborhood‟s appearance (not in the last place because they often concern newly built houses and / or renovation), residents‟ educational prospects and the number and quality of public and private facilities. Contradicting the statistical analysis, the case studies do not indicate that mixed income living lowers unemployment rates among the existing population. Based on the literature review, the statistical analysis and the case studies, we recommend the following concerning mixed income living: take the needs of the existing residents into account. do not only focus on attracting outsiders, but also retain upwardly mobile residents for the neighborhood. when attracting outsiders, focus on the right target group and offer them a great package. acknowledge that children and schools are at the center of effective income mixing, and invest accordingly. mixed income living should never be a goal in itself, and should be part of a broader (investment)package. measure the effects of mixed income interventions. On a final note, there are some drawbacks to our research design. We only include the effects of mixed income living on the less financially strong residents, the dataset on which we base the statistical analysis is far from ideal and our case studies are limited to Rotterdam and based on interviews rather than on surveys. On top of that, the use of interviews is subject to many potential problems. We recommend that in further research, these drawbacks are dealt with.