The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency has named Carolyn Ristau, Remaking Cities Institute Visiting Scholar, as its inaugural Kathy A. Possinger Housing Policy Fellowship awardee. Ristau will receive a financial stipend of up to $12,000 to conduct research benefiting the affordable housing industry.
This fellowship will support Carolyn's research project "Residential Zoning by Race: How Pittsburgh's Zoning Districts Promote Different Housing Options for Black and White Residents." Through a GIS analysis of current and historical zoning maps, the 1930s HOLC (redlining) map, and neighborhood demographics, she will be testing the hypothesis that current single-family and multi-family zoning districts in Pittsburgh follow a racial and exclusionary pattern that affects housing choice available to black and white residents.
The project will focus on zoning districts in the city of Pittsburgh to determine whether an exclusionary pattern exists that affects housing availability for residents. Her research will seek to better understand local conditions, how and why the zoning districts were established, and ultimately determine if there is a pattern of single-family zoning districts in some neighborhoods and multifamily zoning districts in others. The methodology Ristau uses in this study will then be available for application in other Pennsylvania municipalities. At the conclusion of her fellowship, her findings will be made publicly available to benefit the state’s policymakers and the housing industry.