The Quest to Humanize Policy Interventions: Exploring the Relationship between Neighborhood Revitalization Programs and Subjective Well-being of Low-Income Communities in the United States

This dissertation explores policy interventions used in many low-income American cities in their revitalization efforts and examines the impact of these policy programs on the resident's overall quality of life outcomes. This study uses an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design to explore the relationships between best practices, state aid incentives, neighborhood revitalization, and residents' subjective well-being (SWB) in distressed neighborhoods across multiple low-income communities. The use of state aid, such as tax credits for neighborhood revitalization programs has become a popular strategy for U.S. federal, state, and local governments seeking to revitalize disadvantaged neighborhoods. Many scholars have explained its popularity by noting that both they and policymakers frequently expect that such aid incentives will have trickle-down effects that improve the quality of life of neighborhood residents. Yet neither scholars nor policymakers typically have examined whether residents agree. That is, do neighborhood residents perceive that such programs have relatively positive influences on their quality-of-life (that is, their subjective well-being)? Residents in neighborhoods with some forms of revitalization programs may still experience little or no change in their perceived quality-of-life, more so, does municipalities experience improvement in their Best Practices (BP) scores in following a reduction in state aid incentives during a fiscal year? Findings suggest that individual perceptions and evaluations of neighborhood characteristics play a key role in their quality-of-life experience. The results further highlight that socio-economic factors and respondent locations have direct and indirect effects on reported subjective well-being. This dissertation concludes by discussing how these findings might help scholars and policymakers in understanding how residents' interaction with public policy at the local level shape their quality of life experience, and most importantly, it suggests areas for further research that challenges traditional methods of measuring the impacts of policy interventions.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Public Administration/Public Affairs

Department dc:contributor.department

Government and International Affairs

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Okereke, David

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Hult, Karen M.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Dull, Matthew Martin
• Zuniga, Raymond A.
• Hall, Ralph P.

• subjective wellbeing
• low-income neighborhoods
• local policies
• neighborhood revitalization tax credit
• intervention programs

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:45268

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/140788