Lake Parc Place: A study of mixed-income housing

Stimulated by Wilson's contentions in The Truly Disadvantaged about the del eterious consequences of concentrated poverty, policy makers have considere d various ways of creating mixed-income communities. Lake Pare Place is a b old effort to create mixed-income housing in buildings that were formerly a traditional low-income housing project and that are still owned by the Chi cago Housing Authority. Low rents and promises of safety have attracted a sufficient number of "non project" residents to fill half the units at Lake Pare Place. This article examines whether these residents feel safe and satisfied, and whether they interact and form friendships with neighbors, get involved in volunteer act ivities at Lake Pare Place, and support rule enforcement. We present findin gs from a large survey of Lake Pare Place residents and from in-depth inter views with a subset of the survey sample. We find that Lake Pare Place acco mplished the prerequisites for making mixed-income housing into a community .