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Purchasing a home is the largest expenditure many people will make during their lifetime, as well as their greatest source of wealth. There is a homeownership gap between natives and immigrants well documented in the literature. I examine the determinants of homeownership, the value of purchased homes (a measure of potential housing wealth), and the equity owned for those who have purchased a home (a measure of actual housing wealth) for immigrants and natives. When immigrants are separated by citizenship status the homeownership gap between natives and immigrants is shown to be a gap between natives and non-citizen immigrants. Immigrant citizens have ownership outcomes as good or better than natives. Further, the gap reflects a problem in ownership, brought about by age and income distributional differences, not in value or equity for homeowners. All immigrants are predicted to have higher home value and home equity than natives.

Purpose – This chapter examines the complex, multilevel barriers low-income women of color in a medium-sized Midwestern city face when trying to achieve economic self-sufficiency and homeownership. The aim of this study was to determine whether women attempting to achieve self-sufficiency and/or homeownership face different barriers than men as a result of multiple and intersecting social locations.

Design/methodology/approach – The study sample includes 24 low-income women of color, all of whom participated in in-depth interviews in Fall, 2008. Low-income women also completed short demographic surveys. Intersectionality represents the conceptual framework for this study, and data analysis followed phenomenological inquiry.

Findings – Some barriers low-income women of color face are unacknowledged and are gendered and racialized. Many women in this study faced personal barriers (e.g., low-income, lack of savings, poor credit, lack of mentors) and system-level barriers (e.g., banking account requirements and lenders’ downpayment requirements) to obtain economic self-sufficiency and/or homeownership simultaneously.

Research limitations – This study only examined 25 women's experiences in one location. These findings can only be generalized to low-income women of color in this study.

Originality/value – This study addresses the gaps in existing literature about low-income women's journeys toward economic self-sufficiency, and highlights that many women have goals of homeownership as well. Data analyzed here also illustrated the complex nature of barriers.

Subprime mortgage was a kind of high-risk and high-interest lending, especially targeted at low-income and minority borrowers. The majority of subprime mortgage loans were made to non-affluent, low-income and poor borrowers who were previously unable to buy properties and might have poor credit histories (Pitcoff, 2003; Schwarcz, 2009). Why did mortgage lenders compromise their lending standards and dare to take obviously huge risks in mortgage lending? It is clear that the origin of the aggressive subprime mortgage practices were linked to the US Government's policy for increasing national homeownership and encouraging lenders to provide mortgage loans and other credits to low-income and minority borrowers, as a specific stakeholder group.

This chapter examines how deregulatory fiscal policies undermined federal legislation intended to reduce racial and economic inequality through measures that included wider access to home loans among minority populations. We focus specifically on structural tensions that existed between fostering the goals of economic and racial equality within a political structure that also serves the needs of finance capitalism. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), typically considered a triggering point for the financial meltdown by conservative commentators, was passed to address racial and economic inequalities, yet financial deregulation and the growth of the subprime mortgage industry ended up completely subverting these goals. The unprecedented growth and evolution of the subprime mortgage industry that occurred largely outside of the law's reach helped minorities and other economically disadvantaged groups enter into the housing market. However, a crime-facilitative environment brought on by inadequate regulation resulted in a significant degree of fraud by lenders. While this expanded homeownership among minorities, it eventually pushed them into default and brought chaos to the entire U.S. economy. This chapter details how the collapse of the subprime industry disproportionately impacted minority populations, and exposes how deregulatory policies subverted the effectiveness and reach of the FHA and CRA. The history of the CRA provides a clear example of the contradictory tensions within the U.S. legal system that espouses equality yet ultimately fails those it was designed to help as a consequence of unfettered capitalism.

This chapter examines the use of routine health care and disparities by socioeconomic status among Vietnamese New Orleanians. It also assesses how these differences may have changed as the result of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast in late summer 2005, devastating the infrastructure of the health care system of New Orleans. Data for this study come from a panel of Vietnamese New Orleanians who were interviewed in 2005, just weeks before the hurricane, and followed up twice near the disaster's anniversary in 2006 and 2007. Findings show a steep declining trend in routine health care after the hurricane, compared to 2005. Marked differences in health care were already apparent in 2005 (before Katrina) between education levels, homeownership, and health insurance coverage. These differences were significantly reduced one year after the hurricane. We argue, however, that the reduction in disparities was not due to improved health care services or improved health care practice. Instead, it was likely due to the influx of free health care services that were provided to meet urgent needs of hurricane survivors while the area's infrastructure was devastated. By 2007, these free health care services were no longer widely available. Routine health visits dropped further and the temporary reduction in disparities disappeared. This chapter also underlines ongoing shortages of essential health care services for Vietnamese New Orleanians. Efforts need to ensure that all members of this community receive the full array of comprehensive and culturally appropriate health care as they continue to rebuild from the Katrina disaster.

The concept of state-corporate crime developed during the late 1980s and early 1990s in a series of papers authored by Michalowski and Kramer (Kramer, 1990; Kramer & Michalowski, 1990; Michalowski & Kramer, 1987). They specifically define state-corporate crime as:Illegal or socially injurious actions that result from a mutually reinforcing interaction between (1) policies and/or practices in pursuit of goals of one or more institutions of political governance and (2) policies and/or practices in pursuit of goals of one or more institutions of economic production and distribution. (Michalowski & Kramer, 2006a, 2006b, p. 15)

The 2007–2009 financial crisis initially appeared to have destroyed a huge amount of wealth in the United States. Housing prices dropped about 21% across the country and as much as 50% in some places, and the stock market dropped by nearly 50% as well. This chapter examines how the financial crisis differentially affected households at different parts of the income and wealth distributions. Our results show that all households lost about the same percentage of their wealth in that period. But because households in the top 10% of the wealth distribution owned many different kinds of assets, their wealth soon recovered. The bottom 80% of the wealth distribution had more of their wealth tied up in housing. We show that financial distress, indexed by foreclosures, being behind in mortgage payments, and changes in house prices were particularly concentrated in households in the bottom 80% of the wealth distribution. These households lost a large part of their wealth and have not yet recovered. Households that were most deeply affected were those who entered the housing market late and took out subprime loans. African American and Hispanic households were particularly susceptible as they bought houses late in the price bubble often with subprime loans.

New towns deserve renewed attention as today's urban megaprojects in the developing world. They are increasingly built amid governments’ attempts to connect their rapidly growing metropolises to the global economy and to promote them as world cities. This chapter revisits Korea's Bundang and Ilsan new town projects on the outskirts of Seoul. Their fast and lucrative development outcomes established an ill-founded expectation of Korea's new towns being profitable projects and even inspired emulation by other developing countries. To comprehend why the two city-scale new towns differed from those in the West, which often faced difficulties of long timeframe, financial risks, and uncertain outcomes, the chapter examines both their development causes and processes, considering Korea's political, economic, and housing situations of the late 1980s. Rather than long-term planning goals, Bundang and Ilsan served short-term political motives of Korea's first democratic regime, which saw in them a quick fix for some of its political and economic challenges. This determination bore fruit – but with two important prerequisites: (1) Korea's institutional order, marked by state involvement and control over housing development; and (2) Seoul's unique housing market conditions at the time, especially for new apartment units. Planners and policymakers, whether in Korea or elsewhere, should understand the major contributors to Bundang and Ilsan's success before attempting to replicate an experience of fast and profitable development that may no longer be attainable.