Half a century after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, American neighborhoods remain segregated by race and class, contributing to generational poverty and the racial wealth gap. In a new volume titled Perspectives on Fair Housing, edited by Vincent Reina, assistant professor of city and regional planning at the Weitzman School of Design, 14 scholars explore the “historical, sociological, economic, and legal perspectives on the critical and continuing problem of housing discrimination and offers a review of the tools that, if appropriately supported, can promote racial and economic equity in America.”
The volume, published this month by the University of Pennsylvania Press, is co-edited by Penn Provost and James S. Riepe Presidential Professor of Law and Education Wendell Pritchett, and Susan Wachter, the Albert Sussman Professor of Real Estate and Professor of Finance, The Wharton School; and Co-Director, Penn Institute for Urban Research. It also includes contributions from Francesca Russello Ammon, associate professor of city and regional planning and historic preservation; Amy Hillier, associate professor of city and regional planning; and Akira Drake Rodriguez, assistant professor of City and Regional Planning.
To mark the publication of the book, for the rest of October, PennIUR is hosting a series of panel discussions on different aspects of the Fair Housing Act’s legacy.
On October 13, Francesca Ammon and Wendell Pritchett will discuss the history of fair housing. On October 15, the topic turns to sociology for a panel featuring Camille Zubrinsky Charles, Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences and professor of Sociology, Africana Studies, and Education; Xavier de Souza Briggs, nonresident senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings; and Justin Steil, Associate Professor of Law and Urban Planning at MIT. An economics panel on October 20 will feature Susan Wachter; Raphael Bostic, president and chief executive officer for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; and Alanna McCargo, vice president of housing finance policy at the Urban Institute.
An education panel on October 22 will feature Ariel Bierbaum, professor of urban studies and planning at the University of Maryland; Akira Drake Rodriguez; and David Stovall, professor of African-American studies and criminology, law, and justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago. A law panel on October 27 will feature Nestor Davidson, Albert A. Walsh Chair in Real Estate, Land Use, and Property Law and faculty director of the Urban Law Center at Fordham University; Eduardo Peñalver, Allan R. Tessler Dean and Professor of Law at Cornell Law School; and Lisa Rice, president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance. And finally, the series will end on October 29 with a discussion of gender and fair housing between Amy Hillier and Devin Michelle Bunten, the Edward H. and Joyce Linde Assistant Professor of Urban Economics and Housing at MIT.
All panels will be hosted virtually from 5:00–6:00pm, and each discussion will be moderated by Vincent Reina. To learn more and register to attend visit the event site.
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