Uh, not worth spending millions on public housing then..
IMO the "Section 8" (housing vouchers) seems to be a market solution to housing issues and helps fight segregation (when landlords arent doing illegal things). One of the solutions to classism is to have people mix more. Live together, school together, work together, marry together.
In theory that's true, but in practice many U.S. municipalities have restricted the development of any new housing to the point that Section 8 vouchers are impractical due to costs and simple apartment availability (http://www.vox.com/cards/affordable-housing-explained/supply...). Without doing something about NIMBYs and local zoning processes, Section 8 vouchers will not be effective.
Matthew Desmond's book Evicted is pretty good on this point (http://www.amazon.com/Evicted-Poverty-Profit-American-City/d...). I've written or worked on Section 8 proposals, as well HUD 811, 202, HOPE VI, and related programs (see http://seliger.com/2008/07/27/reformers-come-and-go-but-hud-... if you're curious); the people who run them, especially in high-cost cities like LA, SF, NYC, and Seattle are well aware of the problems that local zoning imposes on affordable housing.
I've travelled through the US and stumbled into public housing projects on a few occasions. I found them simply repugnant. Public policy that clumps the poor together is beyond stupid. It's made even worse when you factor in how schools in the US get their budget (property taxes). So, this housing policy further guarantees that the poor stay poor because they end up in crappy schools.
It's like America doesn't actually want to fix any of their social problems.
For example, in Massachusetts, Boston has per-pupil expenditures about $1,000 more (~5%) than Concord, one of the tonier western suburbs. Sure, Boston has many upscale areas but it also includes neighborhoods like Dorchester and Roxbury.
Yes, you can look through the data and find especially old industry cities that have lower spending than many suburban towns but expenditure/pupil doesn't really follow clear patterns based on the income of the community.
There are two problems with this. One, mixing people together often results in the two groups fighting over scarce resources (whether that be spots on the football team, dates to the prom, playing rights at the local basketball court, or well-paying union or government jobs). The battle for scarce resources actually greatly increases class or race based animosity. Second, there are very real differences in behavioral patterns between groups. If you bring in a low class population that is playing loud music until 12AM and letting their kids make mischief around the neighborhood, again, that is going to greatly increase classism.
See for instance the books "Boston Against Busing" or "Philly War Zone: Growing Up in a Racial Battleground" which describes the conflicts that happened when integration was a big thing in the late 60s and early 1970s.
I also wrote a blog post myself on how I changed my mind about the usefulness of Section 8 vouchers and using integration as a solution to class and racial divides: http://devinhelton.com/historical-amnesia.html
What is the relative expense of "section 8" than public housing, since it doesn't produce better economic outcomes than public housing?
But like you mention, there are other axes of evaluation, such as fighting segregation, classism, etc., in addition to basic social justice. "Market soultions" are quite (most?) often the best solutions along these axes, but being a market solution is not an end within itself, IMHO.
This study is just one tiny aspect of the big picture. But its still worthy of publicizing because it's not what I, or many others, expected.
I think the problem in America is the overwhelming use of techniques of sub-linguistic persuasion in media. Think of Alex Baldwin's character in "Glengarry/Glen Ross." Or, if you prefer, an actual practitioner who is running for President right now.
The scene with Alec Baldwin in "Glengarry Glen Ross" is an example - "third prize is you're fired" isn't quite a language construct - it's purely trading on fear. You don't parse it, understand it, then critique or agree.
If you try to treat these things as language, they fall apart. This leads to this massive disconnect in interpretation.
Over the last year, Scott Adams has gone over this quite a bit in explaining the current USAian Republican POTUS candidate. Other source include ( to a lesser extent ) Marshall Macluhan's various work and "The Hidden Persuaders" by Vance Packard.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...
Once any kind of government vouchers or subsidies are involved, you don't have a market solution anymore. Market solutions are solutions that the market provides all by itself.
I agree that vouchers are a better solution than public housing or rent control, and probably introduce fewer distortions in the market than those policies, but it is incorrect to call vouchers a market solution.
In particular, voucher programs generally require landlords to work with local housing authorities to accept rent payments, additional inspections, etc. As a result of this, many landlords don't want to accept tenants who use the vouchers.