UCLA

Baltimore is in the process of reducing its public housing stock by 43% over the next two years through the RAD program. In order to determine if there is a difference in neighborhood characteristics, data including census data, crime data, and health data for the public housing sites selected for RAD were compared to public housing sites with no treatment. Using spatial and statistical analysis, I found little statistically significant differences between RAD sites and the comparison sites. This could be due to the geographic unit used—perhaps a smaller unit would have been more appropriate—or it could be because public housing developments are overwhelmingly concentrated in only a few areas of the city or in areas with similar characteristics. One difference that was statistically significant was there were more children under the age of six with high blood lead levels for the comparison sites compared to RAD sites.