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While it has been commonly assumed that racially mixed neighbourhoods in US cities will become increasingly black, the results of this study question the validity of this assumption. In a series of simulations it is shown that in urban areas with no black inmigration the proportion of the black population does not increase in racially mixed neighbourhoods, unlike the case where there is black in migration to the urban area. With reductions in the rate of black inmigration to US cities, this study suggests policy implications which could help reduce the level of racial segregation in residential areas.

A life table for housing is developed with the use of 1979–1980 loss data for one to three unit structures in Indianapolis, IN. Special attention is paid to methods of data collection and to estimation techniques. Use of the life table and assumptions made in its application are stressed. Also, standard loss projection curves are tested against life table results.

Estimates are made of changes in average housing costs and average family incomes for non-moving elderly homeowners and renters over the period 1972-80. Findings suggest that: rental costs are higher in each time period than are homeownership costs; evidence of serious deterioration in affordability of housing is weak, when looking at aggregate price/income ratios; and it is clear that elderly renters are more seriously disadvantaged in housing affordability than are elderly homeowners at every time period. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

This paper presents a simple model to contrast the benefit and cost of renovating public housing units against the benefit and cost of building new ones. Benefit is measured as the additional expected life created, and empirically-estimated survivor functions for housing are used to calculate maximum costs at which renovation is cost-effective relative to new construction. Actual renovation costs for an existing program are compared with calculated maximums. Results suggest that past renovation practice may not have been cost-effective relative to new construction. Possible changes in program guidelines are presented. The paper concludes with a discussion of policy implications.government services, resource allocation, public program evaluation, reliability theory: applications