Choosing homes without choosing schools? How urban parents navigate decisions about neighborhoods and school choice

While many assume that families engaged in a housing search decide where to live at least in part based on the schools, there is surprisingly little research on how schools actually matter in the residential decision-making process. Drawing on interviews with a socioeconomically diverse sample of 110 parents in Chicago, we explore the connection between housing and schools. For the vast majority of our sample, schools did not loom large during their housing search. Instead, working families are faced with a range of competing demands and constraints making the housing search so challenging that even families who factor in schooling do so in ways that are neither direct nor straightforward. We conclude that while some past research suggests that urban school choice facilitates the decoupling of housing and school decisions, our data show that the “freedom” that derives from school choice can be more imaginary than real for many families.