Fixer-Upper

Fixer-Upper PDF Author: Jenny Schuetz
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 081573929X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 119

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Book Description
Practical ideas to provide affordable housing to more Americans Much ink has been spilled in recent years talking about political divides and inequality in the United States. But these discussions too often miss one of the most important factors in the divisions among Americans: the fundamentally unequal nature of the nation’s housing systems. Financially well-off Americans can afford comfortable, stable homes in desirable communities. Millions of other Americans cannot. And this divide deepens other inequalities. Increasingly, important life outcomes—performance in school, employment, even life expectancy—are determined by where people live and the quality of homes they live in. Unequal housing systems didn’t just emerge from natural economic and social forces. Public policies enacted by federal, state, and local governments helped create and reinforce the bad housing outcomes endured by too many people. Taxes, zoning, institutional discrimination, and the location and quality of schools, roads, public transit, and other public services are among the policies that created inequalities in the nation’s housing patterns. Fixer-Upper is the first book assessing how the broad set of local, state, and national housing policies affect people and communities. It does more than describe how yesterday’s policies led to today’s problems. It proposes practical policy changes than can make stable, decent-quality housing more available and affordable for all Americans in all communities. Fixing systemic problems that arose over decades won’t be easy, in large part because millions of middle-class Americans benefit from the current system and feel threatened by potential changes. But Fixer-Upper suggests ideas for building political coalitions among diverse groups that share common interests in putting better housing within reach for more Americans, building a more equitable and healthy country.

Fixer-Upper

Fixer-Upper PDF Author: Jenny Schuetz
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 081573929X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 119

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Book Description
Practical ideas to provide affordable housing to more Americans Much ink has been spilled in recent years talking about political divides and inequality in the United States. But these discussions too often miss one of the most important factors in the divisions among Americans: the fundamentally unequal nature of the nation’s housing systems. Financially well-off Americans can afford comfortable, stable homes in desirable communities. Millions of other Americans cannot. And this divide deepens other inequalities. Increasingly, important life outcomes—performance in school, employment, even life expectancy—are determined by where people live and the quality of homes they live in. Unequal housing systems didn’t just emerge from natural economic and social forces. Public policies enacted by federal, state, and local governments helped create and reinforce the bad housing outcomes endured by too many people. Taxes, zoning, institutional discrimination, and the location and quality of schools, roads, public transit, and other public services are among the policies that created inequalities in the nation’s housing patterns. Fixer-Upper is the first book assessing how the broad set of local, state, and national housing policies affect people and communities. It does more than describe how yesterday’s policies led to today’s problems. It proposes practical policy changes than can make stable, decent-quality housing more available and affordable for all Americans in all communities. Fixing systemic problems that arose over decades won’t be easy, in large part because millions of middle-class Americans benefit from the current system and feel threatened by potential changes. But Fixer-Upper suggests ideas for building political coalitions among diverse groups that share common interests in putting better housing within reach for more Americans, building a more equitable and healthy country.

Golden Gates

Golden Gates PDF Author: Conor Dougherty
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 052556022X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
A Time 100 Must-Read Book of 2020 • A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • California Book Award Silver Medal in Nonfiction • Finalist for The New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism • Named a top 30 must-read Book of 2020 by the New York Post • Named one of the 10 Best Business Books of 2020 by Fortune • Named A Must-Read Book of 2020 by Apartment Therapy • Runner-Up General Nonfiction: San Francisco Book Festival • A Planetizen Top Urban Planning Book of 2020 • Shortlisted for the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice “Tells the story of housing in all its complexity.” —NPR Spacious and affordable homes used to be the hallmark of American prosperity. Today, however, punishing rents and the increasingly prohibitive cost of ownership have turned housing into the foremost symbol of inequality and an economy gone wrong. Nowhere is this more visible than in the San Francisco Bay Area, where fleets of private buses ferry software engineers past the tarp-and-plywood shanties of the homeless. The adage that California is a glimpse of the nation’s future has become a cautionary tale. With propulsive storytelling and ground-level reporting, New York Times journalist Conor Dougherty chronicles America’s housing crisis from its West Coast epicenter, peeling back the decades of history and economic forces that brought us here and taking readers inside the activist movements that have risen in tandem with housing costs.

Modern Housing for America

Modern Housing for America PDF Author: Gail Radford
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226702223
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
In an era when many decry the failures of federal housing programs, this book introduces us to appealing but largely forgotten alternatives that existed when federal policies were first defined in the New Deal. Led by Catherine Bauer, supporters of the modern housing initiative argued that government should emphasize non-commercial development of imaginatively designed compact neighborhoods with extensive parks and social services. The book explores the question of how Americans might have responded to this option through case studies of experimental developments in Philadelphia and New York. While defeated during the 1930s, modern housing ideas suggest a variety of design and financial strategies that could contribute to solving the housing problems of our own time.

Homelessness Is a Housing Problem

Homelessness Is a Housing Problem PDF Author: Gregg Colburn
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520383796
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Using rich and detailed data, this groundbreaking book explains why homelessness has become a crisis in America and reveals the structural conditions that underlie it. In Homelessness Is a Housing Problem, Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern seek to explain the substantial regional variation in rates of homelessness in cities across the United States. In a departure from many analytical approaches, Colburn and Aldern shift their focus from the individual experiencing homelessness to the metropolitan area. Using accessible statistical analysis, they test a range of conventional beliefs about what drives the prevalence of homelessness in a given city—including mental illness, drug use, poverty, weather, generosity of public assistance, and low-income mobility—and find that none explain the regional variation observed across the country. Instead, housing market conditions, such as the cost and availability of rental housing, offer a far more convincing account. With rigor and clarity, Homelessness Is a Housing Problem explores U.S. cities' diverse experiences with housing precarity and offers policy solutions for unique regional contexts.

Housing for Humans

Housing for Humans PDF Author: ileana schinder
Publisher: Panoma Press
ISBN: 9781784529543
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
This book navigates the design process of new housing, like additional dwelling units, and explores ideas that can be implemented from the suburbs to cities. Through the history of urban design, zoning regulation, and with an emphasis on the human side of housing, this architect highlights the role that the home plays in society today.

Modern Housing for America

Modern Housing for America PDF Author: Gail Radford
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226702219
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
In an era when many decry the failures of federal housing programs, this book introduces us to appealing but largely forgotten alternatives that existed when federal policies were first defined in the New Deal. Led by Catherine Bauer, supporters of the modern housing initiative argued that government should emphasize non-commercial development of imaginatively designed compact neighborhoods with extensive parks and social services. The book explores the question of how Americans might have responded to this option through case studies of experimental developments in Philadelphia and New York. While defeated during the 1930s, modern housing ideas suggest a variety of design and financial strategies that could contribute to solving the housing problems of our own time.

Housing America

Housing America PDF Author: Randall G. Holcombe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351514997
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Housing policy not only aff ects all Americans' quality of life, but has a direct impact on their fi nancial well being. About 70 percent of American households own their own homes, and for most, their homes represent the majority of their net worth. Renters are aff ected by housing policy. Even the small minority of Americans who are homeless are aff ected by housing policies specifi cally targeted to low-income individuals.The government's increasing involvement in housing markets, fed by popular demand that government "do something" to address real problems of mortgage defaults and loans, provides good reason to take a new look at the public sector in housing markets. Crises in prime mortgage lending may lower the cost of housing, but the poor and homeless cannot benefi t because of increases in unemployment. Even the private market is heavily regulated. Government policies dictate whether people can build new housing on their land, what type of housing they can build, the terms allowed in rental contracts, and much more.This volume considers the eff ects of government housing policies and what can be done to make them work better. It shows that many problems are the result of government rules and regulations. Even in a time of foreclosures, the market can still do a crucial a job of allocating resources, just as it does in other markets. Consequently, the appropriate policy response may well be to signifi cantly reduce, not increase, government presence in housing markets. Housing America is a courageous and comprehensive eff ort to examine housing policies in the United States and to show how such policies aff ect the housing market.

Neighborhood Defenders

Neighborhood Defenders PDF Author: Katherine Levine Einstein
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108477275
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Public participation in the housing permitting process empowers unrepresentative and privileged groups who participate in local politics to restrict the supply of housing.

Housing Urban America

Housing Urban America PDF Author: Jon Pynoos
Publisher: AldineTransaction
ISBN: 0202320111
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 688

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Book Description
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of housing: an increasingly difficult quest in the contemporary urban United States, where crime, urban blight, and continuing capital decay undercut the advantages of city living. The American dream has moved to the suburbs; the nightmare of our cities prompts new recognition both in the president's cabinet and the college curriculum. The editors of this book have updated their acclaimed earlier collection, providing new introductory articles; new papers, such as, Discrimination in Housing Prices and Mortgage Lending, A Summary Report of Current Findings from the Experimental Housing Allowance Program, Alternative Mortgage Designs and Their Effectiveness in Eliminating Demand and Supply Effects on Inflation; and a new bibliography of the literature. Additional chapters focus on differing strategies for improved urban housing and renewal by providing concrete suggestions for distributing existing resources and allocating new funding. The bibliography provides the best single guide to the current literature on housing. Housing Urban America, in this new edition, is an important guide to those students and scholars fascinated by the essential questions of adequate housing: its social costs, and the source of the revenues to provide it.

The Great American Housing Bubble

The Great American Housing Bubble PDF Author: Adam J. Levitin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674979656
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
The definitive account of the housing bubble that caused the Great Recession—and earned Wall Street fantastic profits. The American housing bubble of the 2000s caused the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression. In this definitive account, Adam Levitin and Susan Wachter pinpoint its source: the shift in mortgage financing from securitization by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to “private-label securitization” by Wall Street banks. This change set off a race to the bottom in mortgage underwriting standards, as banks competed in laxity to gain market share. The Great American Housing Bubble tells the story of the transformation of mortgage lending from a dysfunctional, local affair, featuring short-term, interest-only “bullet” loans, to a robust, national market based around the thirty-year fixed-rate mortgage, a uniquely American innovation that served as the foundation for the middle class. Levitin and Wachter show how Fannie and Freddie’s market power kept risk in check until 2003, when mortgage financing shifted sharply to private-label securitization, as lenders looked for a way to sustain lending volume following an unprecedented refinancing wave. Private-label securitization brought a return of bullet loans, which had lower initial payments—enabling borrowers to borrow more—but much greater back-loaded risks. These loans produced a vast oversupply of underpriced mortgage finance that drove up home prices unsustainably. When the bubble burst, it set off a destructive downward spiral of home prices and foreclosures. Levitin and Wachter propose a rebuild of the housing finance system that ensures the widespread availability of the thirty-year fixed-rate mortgage, while preventing underwriting competition and shifting risk away from the public to private investors.