Affordable Housing

In his book, The Rent Is Too Damn High, Matthew Yglesias encourages us to reexamine our assumptions about which urban policies our values really support.

March 23, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

The National Low Income Housing Coalition has recently released a map showing their state-by-state findings on housing affordability. And, in no state was a 40-hour work week at minimum wage enough to pay for a two-bedroom unit at Fair Market Rent.

March 20, 2012 - The Washington Post

Ron Nyren looks at 10 affordable housing developments across the world completed in the last five years that demonstrate good design and low-cost housing are not mutually exclusive.

March 17, 2012 - Urban Land

Once a bastion of rent-controlled housing for the poor and working class, a New York non-profit recently ousted its CEO following a string of risky real estate investments, Charles Bagli reports.

March 15, 2012 - New York Times

Continuing their excellent coverage of the twists and turns in the California redevelopment saga, CP&DR have run two articles this week providing updates on efforts to navigate a path forward for redevelopment.

February 24, 2012 - California Planning & Development Report

Scott James reports on the ironic application of rent control laws in San Francisco, which results in people of relatively modest means subsidizing the housing of the extraordinarily wealthy.

February 19, 2012 - The Bay Citizen

Sarah Laskow reports on a new study by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) that seeks to rethink how affordable housing is defined to incorporate transportation costs.

February 7, 2012 - Good

As developers across the country increasingly recognize the market advantages of redevelopment oriented around transit, and property values rise in response, hundreds of thousands of units of affordable housing are at risk.

February 5, 2012 - Shelterforce

Scott Doyon argues for a stripped-down, back-to-basics 'punk rock' approach to urban growth and development to replace the 'rock and roll' excesses of planning during the housing boom; and he profiles the new innovators who are doing just that.

February 5, 2012 - PlaceShakers

Ron Nyren examines the various types of projects that will be negatively impacted by California's decision to abandon redevelopment.

January 20, 2012 - Urban Land

The commonwealth's nonprofit affordable housing developers are outgreening their market-rate peers, bringing green building up to scale statewide.

January 20, 2012 - Shelterforce

An innovative tenants-rights organization in Boston combines community activism and financial backing to force banks to sell foreclosed homes back to the previous owners.

January 8, 2012 - Shelterforce

Affordable housing advocates find that green building techniques result in higher-quality construction -- and often with costs comparable to traditional building techniques.

January 7, 2012 - Shelterforce

Low-income residents of the Upper 9th Ward in New Orleans have lived alongside a potentially lethal legacy of federal policy decisions -- and on top of a 95-acre municipal dump.

January 5, 2012 - City Limits

The continuing recession and housing crisis are being further decimated by federal cuts to housing aid, according to The Nation.

January 1, 2012 - The Nation

Illegal apartments present a quandary for the city of New York: they increase the danger of fire, but also provide needed shelter that couldn't be found elsewhere. Some experts think a path to legalization could work.

November 8, 2011 - City Limits

Revitalization has come to East Harlem, but a number of apartment buildings are left vacant by their owners until they can be turned over or the market recovers enough for higher rents.

November 7, 2011 - The New York Times

A new film, "Creativity and the Capitalist City: The Struggle for Affordable Space in Amsterdam", explores the issue of gentrification in the city. polis has a review.

November 3, 2011 - POLIS

Allison Arieff explodes the unspoken myth that public housing must look cheap and unattractive, citing some stellar examples of affordable design.

October 21, 2011 - The Atlantic Cities

New York City Housing Authority Chairman John Rhea says that the city's own parking minimums are making it difficult to make public housing sites more mixed-use, mixed-income and financially sustainable.

October 17, 2011 - Streetsblog