Cityscape: Volume 15 Number 2 | Article 19

The goal of Cityscape is to bring high-quality original research on housing and community development issues to scholars, government officials, and practitioners. Cityscape is open to all relevant disciplines, including architecture, consumer research, demography, economics, engineering, ethnography, finance, geography, law, planning, political science, public policy, regional science, sociology, statistics, and urban studies.

Cityscape is published three times a year by the Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

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Mixed Messages on Mixed Incomes

Volume 15 Number 2

Mark D. Shroder

Michelle P. Matuga

The Evidence Does Not Show That Homeownership Benefits Children

David R. Barker
University of Iowa

Billionaires live in big houses, but aspiring tycoons would be mistaken if they concluded from this fact that upgrading their abodes would increase their chances of obtaining great wealth. Similarly, the fact that children of homeowners are better off than children of renters does not necessarily imply that every parent should own a house.