Mixing Policies: Expectations and Achievements

Hilary Silver
Brown University

Commentary
These comments relate to the articles in this Cityscape symposium by Levy, McDade, and Bertumen, by Keller et al., and by Kearns et al.

This symposium offers a wide-ranging critique of the often unspoken assumptions underlying social mixing policies. The rubric is very broad and consequently, mixes mixing policies, so to speak. The articles address racial and ethnic diversity, income mixing, and tenure mixing at different scales—buildings, housing developments, and neighborhoods—in two different liberal welfare states, the United States and United Kingdom.