Over the past few weeks there have been a number of new reports and studies released that those interested in integration, housing policy, and neighborhood development should pay special attention to:

• "Soul of the Community" by the Knight Foundation / Gallup
  From the press release announcing the study and site: "A new Gallup study explores the link between economic growth and residents’ loyalty to and passion towards where they live. According to the “Soul of the Community” study, the qualities that make people love where they live include social offerings (such as entertainment venues and places to meet), openness (how welcoming a place is) and community aesthetics (such as physical beauty and green spaces)."

• "Americans Claim to Like Diversity, but Do They Really?" by the Pew Research Center
  From the article: "About six-in-ten Americans say they like the idea of living in politically, racially, religiously or economically mixed communities, while about a quarter take the opposite view: They would rather live in communities made up mostly of people like themselves. The rest say they have no strong opinion on the issue, according to a new nationwide Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey."
• "Federal Programs for Addressing Low-Income Housing Needs" by Margery Austin Turner and G. Thomas Kingsly, Urban Institute
  Abstract: "Housing costs constitute the single biggest expenditure in most family budgets, and many low-income families have difficulty finding housing they can reasonably afford. Although most family-strengthening and community change initiatives recognize the urgency of the housing problems facing low-income families, they often have difficulty figuring out how to constructively address them. Federal housing programs are numerous and confusing, implementation is balkanized, funding falls woefully short of needs, and policy debates often focus on narrow technical issues. This primer demystifies federal rental assistance programs and provides the most current information available on how many (and who) they serve and how their scale is changing. It also summarizes key challenges facing housing policy today and in the coming years—challenges that may create opportunities for federal, state, and local engagement and innovation."
• "In the Eye of the Beholder" by Maria Krysan, Reynolds Farley, and Mick Cooper, DuBois Review: Social Science Research on Race
  Abstract: "There is a lively debate about the causes of racial residential segregation. Counter to the racial-proxy hypothesis (Harris 1999, 2001), we argue that race, per se, continues to be influential when Whites make housing decisions. Using a survey-based experiment, we ask: Does information about neighborhood racial composition influence how Whites judge the quality of that neighborhood, quite apart from the actual characteristics of the homes located in it? A random sample of adults aged twenty-one and older in the Chicago and Detroit metropolitan areas watched videos embedded in a face-to-face interview. These videos portrayed neighborhoods ranging from lower working class to upper class. All respondents saw the same neighborhoods but were randomly assigned to see either (1) White residents, (2) Black residents, or (3) a mix of both White and Black residents. Respondents then evaluated the neighborhoods in terms of housing cost, property upkeep, safety, trajectory of housing values, and quality of the schools. Results show that Whites who saw White residents rated the neighborhood more positively on four of five dimensions than did Whites who saw the identical neighborhood with Black residents; racially mixed neighborhoods fell in between. In addition, Whites who endorsed negative stereotypes about Blacks were more likely to give low evaluations to neighborhoods with Black residents than were Whites who did not endorse stereotypes."

Is there something we've missed? Make sure to let us know in the comments section!