The Dispersal of Subsidized Housing in Chicago

This article shows how the Index of Dissimilarity can be used to develop a measure of the dispersal of subsidized housing in American cities. The Index is applied to data for Chicago: Similar data can be generated in other cities, and comparisons can be made among cities and metropolitan areas as to the degree of dispersal achieved over the three census years 1960, 1970, and 1980. This information should be useful to public officials who administer housing programs as well as to scholars, for it provides a means to assess the degree to which the policy of "deconcentration" of subsidized housing, pursued as national policy for more than a decade, was achieved.