What Should be Done about Public Housing?

[Leopolds Ghost]

Poll question: What Should be Done about Public Housing?

The following are ten widely-held and completely different solutions to the housing crisis
(in New York, New Orleans and elsewhere) proposed by prominent urban planners.

Pick one and tell us how you feel it applies to the progressive response to current events
in New Orleans (or, if you prefer, tell us how it applies to events in your own city.)
There will be a surprise quiz.

1. SHELTER: The government or foundations should build, own, and maintain as much housing
as possible or desirable for the very poor. Cheap housing for the poor and working class
is a human right.

2. REHABILITATION: Public housing should be for families who have shown progress in obtaining
credit, job, and getting their lives in order, as necessitated by the fact that they are
living in public housing. Middle income units should be heavily subsidized to establish
what is the norm and provide an example for the poorest residents to aspire to.
Public housing is not something that a working poor family should want to live in.
Free housing for the very poor encourages dependency and pathology.

3. URBAN RENEWAL: Public housing and most of the inner city around it is physically outdated
and should be rebuilt wholesale. Our cities should be continually renewed with large scale
redevelopment. No one should have to live in old, depreciated buildings.

4. WORLD CITY: The function of a great city is to provide a haven for the creative classes,
who have created vitality and solved many of the world's problems. The post-industrial city
is not adapted to handle poverty or families with children, and those groups shouldn't want
or need to live in the inner city. Cap rates necessitate that jurisdictions compete with
one another to maximize public services for the creative class who gravitate to well-run
cities, and minimize expenditures on economically costly populations who seek more services
and produce less taxes. This competition is expressed in the form of statistics known as
ratables. Cities with superior ratables are more highly rated by most policy makers, real
estate agents, business executives, and "livability" indexes.

5. OWNERSHIP: Rental housing is not the solution to helping poor people. It is exploitative.
Everyone should experience the dream of owning a home, or condominium. Ideally these would
be co-ops, or rent to own scenarios. When everyone has a stake in the housing market, a
rising tide lifts all boats.

6. LIVABILITY/DISPERAL: Densely developed housing is ill-suited to anyone but the rich.
Therefore, dense high-rise housing should be a niche market for rich urbanites, who
are the only ones who can afford or benefit. High rises for the less affluent are
therefore obsolete, a product of the industrial era. Most people want a house and a yard
and the ability to raise kids away from the threat of crime. Everyone wants to move up
and out. Densely packed inner city developments are crime magnets and should be de-densified
to encourage average Americans to live there. The current residents will benefit from moving
to the suburbs, and the inner city will begin to look more like America. Innovative
multi-jurisdictional programs can be established to scatter housing for the very poor
throughout the suburbs which are, in general, more suitable places to raise a child.

7. DEFENSIBLE SPACE: Public housing is impossible to maintain because it is an undervalued
economic resource provided below cost and hence abused and oversubscribed. Any concentration
of the very poor, especially in high-rises, prevents the creation of defensible communities
protected by watchful homeowners. The very poor should be dispersed. "Broken window theory."

Soft version: "eyes on the street theory" -- some current projects are simply ill designed
to give current residents a sense of ownership, poor or not; vast courtyards, empty, fenced
in dead zones and a lack of mixed use are more of a problem than lack of mixed income. Note
that the soft version applies only on a case by case business since many HOPE VI projects
are dominated by dead zones, garage townhomes, security gates etc. which are defensible,
but do not create a sense of public ownership, only private space. So under the hard theory
these projects are a success and under the soft theory they are a dismal failure (especially
if the original projects were already laid out in an urbanist or scattered site fashion
of the sort that negates and silences defensible space arguments other than the tautological
"the windows are broken, so the place must have been ill designed").

8. NEO-URBANISM: Cities like Portland, OR demonstrate that the neighborhood is better off when
there is less poverty and more wealth. New, politically active and socially conscious residents
are better able to lobby for improved services for the remaining poor. Livable, walkable
communities are in high demand and should be put to highest and best use. The remaining poor
will benefit. Most poor people would rather live in the suburbs anyway if they weren't
prevented from doing so by restrictive zoning ordinances.

9. WELFARE REFORM: Public housing is good in theory, but the programs in practice have failed
to move poor people out of them. Instead, they become havens for the very poor. Reducing the
number of people on the rolls allows poor people to get on with their lives and free up money
for job training and emergency assistance. Minimize the number on the rolls. The metric of
success is that the program is no longer needed.

10 GENTRIFICATION/NECESSITY: The presence of public housing has prevented surrounding areas from
gentrifying, for better or for worse. The need for public housing should be evaluated
in terms of our overall goals for moving people with money into the city and poor people out,
OR vice versa. Developers aren't doing both; there is going to be a continual housing shortage
for the poor. It is an either-or decision what we choose to spend public money on:
to facilitate gentrification by encouraging for-profit redevelopment, or building housing
for the poor to combat gentrification and mitigate for-profit redevelopment. Someone has
to lose. We should be realistic and not pretend that the city will become a haven for the
wealthy and provide for the needs of the very poor at the same time, in the current political
climate, in the absence of massive new construction which developers are unwilling to finance.

[Stargazer99]

1. My first response is "there must be only middleclass individuals

responding to this poll. Anyone in touch with the reality of what the poor experience knows damn well credit is not going to be extended to the poor. Which planet did you responders come from? Free housing? How about subsidized housing? 80% of my income goes to housing and utilities. How would you like to be 70 years old and have to shower in a 30 degree bathroom? And still I do not have enough income to cover for winter heating. Renting consists of covering the owner's taxes, repairs, mortgage/interest (without one dime being deducted from my taxes)and a PROFIT for the owner! Medical care has been a bitch to find even though I am covered under Medicare. I do not have the money for co-pays because EVERY DAMN CENT GOES TO LIVING EXPENSES. So free clinic it is...I figure the stess and the depression I'm already suffering from will kill me in a few years not to mention rotting teeth. Oh yeah try to get a job with missing and rotted teeth and 70 years old, I dare ya! This state thinks I have too much income to get any medical aid and dental is not covered for adults.
If you were actually told the hurdles and roadblocks in the path of the poor, you might insist something be done. But there are those of you out there that really don't care about anyone but yourselves and those of you are kept in the dark about the reality for young and old who try to survive being poor.
And for those of you idiots who are going to say how do you afford a computer? IT WAS GIVEN TO ME. Next, how do you afford internet service..THE SERVICE IS NOT MINE BUT I CAN USE IT. Any other self-rightous idiots out there with some more stupid comments? Do I sound angry? Gee, I wonder why...

[BlueJazz]

2. I'm certainly not in your dire financial condition but I do try to understand..

...the plight of the poor....I mean, face it..they get a shitty deal.
..And by poor I don't just mean the homeless or almost homeless.

It amazes me that this country gives so much "Money Away" to Corporations, Rich and millions of others who (basically) do nothing for it....yet balks every time it has to help the under-privileged. (OMG..That will cost 2 percent of the Budget)

[Stargazer99]

4. It is people like you that makes me think ...maybe there are

some decent people "out there".
The poor and near poor need to gather together (unfortunately a leader is needed)and raise hell with this country and start informing the country of the real problems faced by low income people. I recognize it has been the middleclass who have held us together with their taxes in supporting programs for low income neighbors. Enough of the well to do who have monetary power and political power (money talks) have made self-serving laws. Interest rates used to be controlled when I was young, now you have up to 38% interest on principle and interest combined with the credit card banks. There should be an immeadite stop to that highway robbery by banks. Small farms, geocery stores, gas stations used to support families, now coporations own "the means of production". We've been made sick by big business (lead, e-coli, etc). A small exporter of beef wanted to export their meat to Japan but had to test for "mad cow" before Japan would accept. The large meat businesses BY LAW (our government for and by the people?)would not permit testing. Yet still the common man sits and takes it in the shorts!
The recent housing bubble caused by banks...will rob low income people of the investment in their homes. Why was ARMS even permitted when it was rather obvious what could happen? It is called robbing the poor and low-income by LAW. Sometimes I wonder if people think at all. Madison said education should be a right because an educated citizenry was the only way to keep this nation.
Well, Pell grants have been cut and one needs to take out a lifetime loan to get a college education. Keep them dumb, if they get smart they might be more difficult to control.

[Leopolds Ghost]

3. I am amazed that there is so much apathy surrounding the issue

Of something that is a basic public service and a tenet of the New Deal.

I guess people are too busy talking about the morality of cruise ships.

For the record, I voted #10. #1 and #7 are close second for me
(the soft, eyes on the street version ONLY, that existing projects
can be physically improved, NOT the hard version that the poor should
be dispersed because homeowners have more pride in their community).

The hard version of #7 is immensely popular and basically consists of an
assertion that public services provided free of charge cannot be
maintained because nobody will appreciate them.

It is a theory that is mostly associated with Anglo-Saxon, "my home is my castle"
ideas about what is defensible space and what is public space and what is a
suitable place to live and raise a family (a home, a fence, a huge yard to
separate you from your neighbors).

People move here from other countries and don't understand the lack of respect
and social cohesion Americans have for densely developed inner city areas,
which most Americans, rich and poor, seem to hate and wish to escape, fail
to maintain, and justify the lack of maintenance by arguing that nobody but
the very rich (who have no need of the public realm) and very poor want to
live there anyway. People in other countries are far more willing to live
in cities. For one thing, they drive less and are less afraid of their
neighbors.

I tried to represent all ten positions as sympathetically as possible,
however. I've had to read extensive essays, editorials, and textbook
citations backing each one (and guess which theory are most popular?)

In short, my theory is similar to Jane Jacobs -- "Build as much housing
for the very poor as possible. So as not to create a concentration of
poverty, increase the overall density of the projects and you will get
a real city -- an economically integrated neighborhood that is large
enough and densely populated enough to accomodate everybody, including
any poor person who wants to live there. People will naturally 'better'
themselves if they are not starving and don't feel like they're unwanted
in their own communities, when even the most liberal jurisdictions
refuse to pay for decent schools on the grounds that the grades are bad
and only poor kids (whom they hope to export to the suburbs) live there.
Demolition implies that there is too much housing, not too little, and
recapitulates the "large scale redevelopment" mentality of the urban
renewalists. Demolition of existing projectsis therefore perverse."

Especially if justified in terms of a reduction in the overall affordable
housing supply (seen by many people as a benefit)

and no improvement in design quality (with hideous, gated garage pod complexes
and poorly designed plastic neotrad homes seen as an improvement over ugly but
passably efficient and hence recoverable modern apartments that would go for
half a million dollars if they were located in an upscale neighborhood.)

[AndyTiedye]

29. A lot of us simply are not wired to be city people

People move here from other countries and don't understand the lack of respect
and social cohesion Americans have for densely developed inner city areas,
which most Americans, rich and poor, seem to hate and wish to escape, fail
to maintain, and justify the lack of maintenance by arguing that nobody but
the very rich (who have no need of the public realm) and very poor want to
live there anyway. People in other countries are far more willing to live
in cities. For one thing, they drive less and are less afraid of their
neighbors.

Actually, I think a lot of people moved here from other countries over the past three centuries
because they lack the social cohesion wiring also. I think it's a neurological thing and it is hereditary.

A lot of us simply are not wired to be city people.

The original version of the American dream was a farm.

[Skittles]

17. I hear you, Stargazer

I've never experienced poverty myself but it is not hard to educate oneself to the realities they face. I constantly say to myself, HOW DO POOR PEOPLE DO IT? whenever I feel like I am being squeezed. My heart goes out to you. Keep on fighting and keep posting first-hand knowledge like this - I'm betting it is likely to humble more than a few folk.

[sandnsea]

5. More Section 8

Housing first. The success of any other personal rehabilitation is dependent on permanent housing.

[Leopolds Ghost]

6. Well, theres the rub ain't it

They're using public housing vouchers (with attendant waiting list) as a carrot to get people to move out of existing public housing so they can tear it down and build projects where only 20-30% of the units are voucher eligible.

Meanwile there is a waiting list for private housing, Section 8 developers refuse to do mixed-income (banks won't allow it, so the residents end up living in an economically segregated SUBURBAN slum instead of an urban one)

and the very act of tearing down the housing project usually precipitates a real estate boom in the surrounding area, allowing "urban pioneers" to profit and causing the Section 8 housing stock to plummet.

Then you get hideous private housing complexes, once Section 8, turned into half a million dollar loft condominiums due to the proximity to downtown.

Nobody ever complains about the "barren, inhuman" appearance of these gentrified highrise developments and apartment complex AFTER they are gentrified and thoroughly renovated and improved -- for the benefit of wealthy residsents.

(that's when the "high-rise living is only desired by rich people, nobody else would want to live there, that's why it's so expensive" theory kicks in.)

And once the poor people are concentrated entirely in private Section 8 housing (which nobody seems to care is ill maintained and segregated and far from public transit) it is easier for people to forget they exist, regardless of how much a lucky few benefit.

And that's if the new development doesn't require people to undergo credit retraining in order to be eligible to return to the few remaining units on site or nearby..!

Section 8 is important because there is nothing else. However, the object of HOPE VI is to replace public housing (guaranteed housing, albeit ill-maintained) with Section 8 vouchers (in ill maintained units that are NOT integrated and NOT located in central or desirable areas, else they wouldn't accept Section 8.)

In short, Section 8 is a great tool to get the private sector to do at a profit what the government is supposedly incapable of doing.

[sandnsea]

11. Some people don't want to live in projects

Section 8 vouchers allow people to live in houses in neighborhoods and not have the stigma of poverty dumped on them. Section 8 vouchers have been around for decades and were used when there wasn't enough public housing in a community, particularly small towns. The landlords are people who need the security of a constant paycheck, which they know they will get from the government. What's done in the cities with project housing is not the same as smaller cities and towns. Increasing Section 8 vouchers can also be done instantaneously. Increase the funding, increase the home inspectors, and you've got people in homes and apartments in a very short time.

I don't know why you're differentiating Section 8 apartments from public housing apartments, they both suck.

[Leopolds Ghost]

19. I am not going to get into a deep Section 8 housing discussion

I spent 5 years trying to keep the tenant of the sole Section 8 house on my town's Main Street from being evicted by a vindictive liberal citizenry that wanted to improve their downtown by removing all the low-income (detached victorian) rental housing from the main drag. The sole Section 8 houses were targeted for a public parking lot. We managed to save two of them but the neighbors insisted on a "compromise" that would allow them to make sure the remaining Section 8 unit would not be used for rental housing in the future. Instead, it was given to the displaced homeowner next door as compensation for losing her house to make way for a reduced size parking lot. Attempts to remove the parking lot altogether and save the housing were met with resistance from homeowners who literally didn't want the parking to be built elsewhere because it would be visible from their backyard and possibly afflict the root zone of mature urban forest. Besides, the idea was to kill two birds with one stone by removing the most "blighted" buildings on the block. The community health food co-op insisted that the plans to try to save their houses interfered with their plans to buy the city owned parking in the vicinity as part of a sweetheart deal to enlarge their own parking lot. The government waited until the landlord was able to evict the family in order to sieze and purchase the house so as to limit the county's responsibility for resettling them. To get the family to leave, the landlord smeared shit all over her door. The affluent local residents on the block tut-tutted and reminded the rest of us that the family in question would be better off living somewhere else because the house she was living in was practically uninhabitable due to vermin. The notion that the building could be fixed up was considered impossible until a suitable owner -- the homeowner next door -- suddenly appeared who would "be capable of maintaining the property". The county then paid for the renovation and deeded it to the homeowner next door. Once renovated, new single family zoning restrictions would kick in ensuring that the property could never again be used as rental housing. These zoning restrictions were implemented in the 1920s-1950s nationwide and refined in order to protect the "small town ambience". A nervous historic board asked public officials to confirm this because they didn't want the county to spend money to renovate the structure unless there were guarantees it would not devolve into rental housing again. The Section 8 recipient was able to find housing in another building in town -- multi-family of course because accessory apartments are only grandfathered in on unrenovated structures in most communities, if allowed at all, and only the poorest maintained accept Section 8, usually as a prelude to complete overhaul and condominium conversion.

This is but one story I'm personally familiar with.

The stigma of poverty is present wherever people find poor people distasteful.

Section 8 is a necessary program but it does not replace public housing, and it is not necessarily a "leg up".

The idea that public housing is inferior to private housing is our own making.

It is like the common assumption that public schools in the inner city are inferior to private schools.

Most people accept that this will always be so. The solution of most Dem mayors is to close
the worst performing schools. When the projects get torn down, nearby elementary schools go
from 800 students to zero overnight and get turned into a Gold's Gym for incoming yuppies --
or a private academy. No joke.

[sandnsea]

24. I think we're talking past each other

Some public housing is acceptable, some isn't. It just depends. I think it's a different issue than what to do about the immediate need for housing. As I said, Section 8 can be ramped up with just a bit more money. Landlords can be educated and made to understand that their current tenants could take better care of the property with a little more disposable income, which they would have if they applied for vouchers. It's a quick way to get money into the problem. You know whether it's working or not by waiting lists and homeless shelters. It takes caring people to pay attention, no matter where the poor live. I'm not necessarily against public housing, I've lived in public housing and it was terrific. I've also seen some public housing that I would have never lived in, it was nothing but druggies. I think it's really complicated and different families will have different solutions. But in the short term, Section 8 is the fastest way to get help to people and we're going to need a short term solution very quickly as this housing bubble continues to burst.

[Leopolds Ghost]

7. I would have separated Defensible Space into two camps, but there's no room for #11

They are two different, similar but wildly politically divergent theories
which are usually conflated together, resulting in confusion. It would
be interesting to know which version of Defensible Space people voted for.

* Eyes on the Street (soft version) calls for restrained renovation
and addition to existing urban landscape on the grounds that modernistic
and postmodern "anti-urban" development is, well, inhuman. It does not
necessarily endorse the creation of "neo-urban" developments that have
fewer units, fewer rental units and less overall public space, than the
projects it replaced. Unfortunately HOPE VI and most developers reject
this theory because it goes against the metric of decreasing the number
of poor people living in a certain neighborhood, which is the PRIMARY
overriding metric used by city governments under most of these theories.

The idea of actually increasing the poor population (by building new
units and doing 1-for-1 replacement of existing units, many of which are
unmaintained by the housing authority and therefore empty) is out of
the question for public officials and unpalatable to most Americans.
They hate public housing because it provides a haven for the desperately
poor, whether it is safe or unsafe haven. Their objective is to reduce
the number of poor people; the objective of Eyes on the Street is to make
poor neighborhoods safer by adding additional units and activities, such
as retail.

* Broken Window Theory (hard version) calls for basically total redevelopment
on the grounds that public space and public amenities should be restricted
to confined, carefully maintained areas. Everything else should be private
or semi-private and commoditized. This is based on the original "tragedy
of the commons" used to justify the Enclosure Act in the 1600s which
privatized real estate in England.

It is related to the "ownership" theory that people who own something are more
invested in the community and therefore calls for minimizing the number of people
who have access to common goods and maximizing the number of people who have the
wherewithal to maintain the same resources on a privatized basis.

Broken Window theory (and World City--Creative Class theory, which is gospel in
business, finance and city administration) is the foundation for HOPE VI -- the
notion that the city of tomorrow will be a city of two groups, the investor class
and the creator class, with everyone else relegated to the suburbs.

There is no room for more than a tiny proportion of poor or working class in
most Americans' notion of defensible space. Study after study has shown that
even liberal Americans refuse to live in the same building as, or raise kids with,
people who are below their income bracket in this classless society. If there
is a maid or janitor living in the new community, it is considered a point of
pride until there gets to be more than one. Then the monied people -- the people
we are subsidizing to live in falsely "mixed income" developments -- quietly leave.
No attempt is made to market these developments to the minority of Americans who
ARE willing to live in a mostly-working class area without the promise that it
will soon cease to be working class, a promise they take seriously ("my neighborhood
is a bit iffy, but in five years when the real estate skyrockets I'll be counting
my blessings and it'll be a wonderful place to live in.")

It is interesting to note that Americans are unrealistic about where these working
class families (often including themselves) will live if the idea of scattered
site housing was taken seriously. The answer is that there would be no wealthy
enclaves left, because the wealthy and the professional class are a tiny minority
in this country and they don't even realize it.

That is why wealthy, liberal areas fight so intensely for their prerogatives
(usually in the guise of historic preservation) while simultaneously asking
someone else to take on the job of housing people evicted from the units
they want torn down, the units their parents built in the 60s expressly to
assist the very poor when these towns were less "liberal" than they are today.

* The Ownership Society is more hard-line and asserts that rental housing of any
sort, and possibly high rise living in general, is pernicious. It is a theory
popular on the conservative Right and parts of the Left who want to establish
a Brave New World of "frontier" living in the form of co-ops, condos,
and low-density single family homes, all neatly tucked away from the traffic
and problems of the city. Traffic and crime are considered human rights that
homeowners have the right to be free from, thus exercising their authority as
guardians of the commonweal and 1st class citizens ("I pay properety tax.")
The fact that even the poorest renters pay their owners' much higher property
tax is ignored even by elected officials who refuse to cater to the interests
of tenants, arguing that tenants are transients who are not as invested in
the community and their job as policy makers is to help them, not answer to them.

Ownership theorists frequently are found on the boards of
historic preservation associations and other positions where they fight urban
development, and fight it all the more strenuously if the apartments to be
built are low income in nature!

[Leopolds Ghost]

8. Interestingly, the two people who pioneered Broken Window Theory (Defensible Space) as policy

* Rudy Giuliani, under whom Manhattan's MIDDLE CLASS public housing was gentrified.

* Henry Cisneros, Bill Clinton's HUD Secretary and architect of HOPE VI.

(the program that calls for demolishing NOLA's public housing.)

Perhaps Broken Window Theory should be applied to white collar criminals...

...we could pass a law banning and licensing upscale bars and coffee shops
whenever politicians are known to gather there. Public nuisance.

...we could re-zone areas around the City Jail for use as housing for
elected officials only. Elected officials seeking to live in other
areas would have to recieve a special voucher and job re-training.

...we could fire all employees of any agency where the director is
caught taking kickbacks from a HOPE VI developer. This will inspire
civil servants to take pride and responsibility and a "sense of ownership"
in their communities, so that minor infractions do not spiral out of control.

[readmoreoften]

9. combination of neo-urbanism and ownership

I live in such a community and I think it's working out well for everyone so far. Of course, we don't tear down old projects either. If everyone owns, then gentrification isn't such a big issue, because no one is getting priced out of neighborhoods. I also live in an area where it is possible to buy a home at a reasonable cost.

[readmoreoften]

10. One more thing: but in New Orleans the issue is different than anywhere else in America.

The disaster capitalists are using Katrina to get rid of the poor in New Orleans. They are ceasing owned homes. In light of this, the destruction of the projects in NO seems to me to be part of a genocidal project.

[zalinda]

12. I'm sorry, but I didn't read the whole OP

I started to get confused with all the theories and their names. My idea is simple. Short story, I lived in a house that was being foreclosed on, I ended up moving out. It sold at auction for $3,000, I could have bought it, but I didn't know that it would go for so cheap. Some bank bought it and put it on the market for $50,000. I doubt that they did any renovations as the roof was the same (it needed to be replaced). Even at $6,000 the government could have bought it and then sold it to a couple who were working minimum wage jobs. And, since it was a 2 family, they could have sold one floor to one couple and the other to another couple.

There are plenty of houses that end up in areas that are not great, but not too bad and get deserted and then vandalized. Why doesn't the city just grab them, rehab them and put in people who are working or on SS and sell them the house?

zalinda

[aikoaiko]

13. An admission

I don't think I know of anyone in public housing. I once knew a woman with some kids who got some aid for her rent ( I think she called it section 8), but otherwise I am completely ignorant. She bragged about pulling one over the government -- free money.

In my ignorance, I really only know about stereotypes and the stereotypes are ugly.

Who lives in public housing and why do they need it? Is it generally temporary or long term?

Educate me if you wish.

[sandnsea]

14. How old are you?

You sound as if you are older, "I once knew a woman"...

How is it you've lived so many years and never known people in low income housing units or getting a housing subsidy? What about food stamps or energy assistance?? Any poor people at all?

[aikoaiko]

15. almost 40.

I have known a lot of poor people who needed some temporary assistance and even some permanently disabled folks who live on SS, but no one who lives in public housing. Most of the poor folks I've known lived in housing they could afford, got roommates, and/moved in with family.

This is why I ask. Who lives in public housing?

[sandnsea]

18. Those very same people

When they finally get through 2-3 year waiting lists to get assistance, especially the ones who don't have family. There are such people, you're aware, right?

[aikoaiko]

20. ok.

Aware that there are people who can't live with family? Yes. \

[sandnsea]

22. Who Don't Have Family

At All.

And other people whose family don't have any more money than they do. Or haul your grocery cart back into the store but can't afford any housing in the area. It's just stunning to me that you could be so flippant about people's need for housing.

[aikoaiko]

26. Does it matter if they have family or not if they can't live that family?

I'm not being flippant. I'm just acknowledging that some people can't live with family because of varied reasons. Just as you did.

I asked a question. I asked someone to describe who lives in public housing because I know some poor people (a tiny sample to be sure), but they either work poorly paid jobs and rent meager places or don't work at all (collect disability; SS) and they don't live in public housing for a generation.

I will say this most of those folks I know don't have kids and i can see how that adds tremendously to the burden.

[sandnsea]

27. Lots of people stay poor

They have a minimum wage job and they always have a minimum wage job. Even when they go to school, they become something like a receptionist or nurse's aid, and they're still low income and paying off a student loan too. They always qualify for assistance, so they stay in the housing project. You can't have an economy based on half the people making meager wages and think you're ever going to do away with assistance programs. It's probably the biggest lie in the country. Most people never come anywhere near the "American Dream". Even the people who own their homes usually end up handing it all over for health care at some point in their life.

And you are being flippant when you talk about public housing for a "generation". That's straight out of the right wing hate book. It's sad you would prefer working people pay too much for a dump than to have housing assistance for them to raise families with some dignity.

[aikoaiko]

28. You are most skilled at putting words into my posts that I did not say.

I didn't say that I prefer for people to live in meager housing that they pay for, I'm saying I know people who chose to live in meager housing that they pay for and don't end up in pubic housing.

About the generation comment: So are you saying it is untrue that some people live in public housing for 20+years? If not, then why don't you let me know how long people stay in public housing.

I am not trying to undue assistance programs in general or even public housing more specifically. I recognize the need to safety nets in our society. I was just trying to better understand who needs public housing.

[dysfunctional press]

33. i'm 46 and i've never known any either...

:shrug:
at least, not as far as i know. i don't suppose it's the kind of thing some people like to broadcast(food stamps, public assistance, etc...).

[LWolf]

16. Other:

Most of the above, with the exceptions of 6 and 10.

A focus on MIXED neighborhoods, whether they be city or suburban.

[Leopolds Ghost]

23. I voted for 10 myself.

Developers are not going to build mixed income housing. Banks won't even finance it. That's how rare it is. Which is why they submit a HOPE VI planned unit development application. They see a profit to be made in a certain housing project, due to its location, and subsidy is required to provide enough residual subsidized housing on site to allow the city to justify giving them the land for free. If there is no profit to be made then no application is submitted and the site goes undeveloped. In the meantime nothing is done to fix it up because all public housing projects nationwide are perpetually on the block thanks to HOPE VI.

Meanwhile, urban multi-family mixed use housing is illegal in the continental US under extensions to the National Subdivision Ordinance and the National Planning and Zoning Act. So there is a finite (fixed) resource to be had. Exceptional areas where mixed-use apartments are legal are known as CBDs or FAR Exception areas. These are areas where developers have special dispensation from the government to build new structures that are not low-rise suburban gated communities. Everywhere else, gated communities are the law thanks to traffic code which prohibits subdivisions from having more than one or two entrance or exit. The CBDs are a special exception district, like a certificate of uniqueness that adds millions of dollars to the price tag. In some rare cases they even get exceptions to the parking requirements that apply everywhere else in America which makes urban development impossible, unless the building is large and expensive enough to afford structured parking. As a result, land in these areas is more expensive than gold. This bleeds over into the surrounding inner city, creating an artificial scarcity.

In short, landowners have a perverse incentive to let the neighborhood go to pot, because all urban development in the US is grandfathered in. If it burned down, it could not be legally rebuilt. As a result there are huge obstacles to infill development that only become lifted if the area is wholesale redeveloped. This can be done under a FAR Exception or simple gentrification, in either case, raising the property values to such a ridiculous degree that redevelopment becomes profitable despite the restrictive anti-urban zoning and design codes. It is an artificial scarcity not unlike what happened to the housing market in NO after Katrina. The proponents of Land Value Taxation have accurately addressed what happens under these conditions, although I'm not sure I agree with their solution.

Bottom line is that tearing down public housing you are actually matching developers dollar for dollar in ensuring that the rest of the area's affordable housing is also torn down or redeveloped. Even if the city is completely stagnant the developer is only building replacement units as a percentage of the market-rate units he (and it is always a he) can profitably make on the site. The surrounding community usually will not allow anything to be built that is more densely built than the surrounding community; usually they will insist that the site be less densely developed than the surrounding area. This legislates sprawl within city limits by creating a mathematical race to the bottom, in terms of population density. Couple that with the official insistence on minimizing the percentage of new units devoted to rental housing, or housing for the poor.

Given that traditional city living arrangements are illegal in the US, there is no place for the city to build but out. Gentrification is a zero sum game. Either you guys want poor people to return to New Orleans or you want affluent homeowners -- the very people who brag about gaming the system and do not deserve a housing voucher -- to purchase suburban style semi-detached homes, complete with garages, on the former site of these lower income apartment buildings.

The only way to "mixed incomeize" these poor neighborhoods is to add additional housing, since the very thing that makes them undesirable to live in is their homogeneous, low-density, isolated character, often surrounded by freeways and industrial buildings. Additional housing is not wanted, however, because that would imply that the current housing will be restored to its original (poor) occupants.

Somehow most Americans believe that if just one poor person gets to live in a house with a garage and a big lawn it will be worth it to tear down all those extra units which they don't believe should exist anyway, regardless of how well built. They are committed with evangelical fervor to eliminate the traditional city form, first by moving all the poor people into segregated encampments and then tearing them down and replacing them with a fraction of the original units.

The legendary high modernist Victor Gruen once did an infamous study of Fort Worth. It was the waterloo for the modernist movement. He basically did a recursive analysis of traffic patterns and determined that Fort Worth could not be redeveloped under American traffic and zoning ordinances. To provide for parking for the existing buildings, half of them had to be removed. This doubled the number of car trips, to provide parking for the additional urban car trips, half of the remaining buildings had to be removed. After a certain (very quick) tipping point, the area becomes unappealing to pedestrians due to the lack of density and the volume of asphalt, resulting in more car trips. This goes on ad infinitum until there are no buildings left. Victor Gruen had to throw out his original plans for making Fort Worth a low-density, car-friendly city. Concentration of people in any form is not permitted under current law. This is not merely a hypothetical notion, you can witness it in every small town in America and it is happening to the inner city. The fact that car oriented areas quickly become percieved as unsafe if there is any crime at all is a huge, huge mitigating factor. The HOPE VI developments are hollowed out Potemkin Villages on sites where a city once stood.

[LWolf]

30. "Gentrification," though,

pushes lower people OUT in the long run. When housing in the neighborhood becomes more attractive, prices go up and they can no longer afford to live there.

I agree that developers will not build mixed income housing currently. If cities AND suburbs were zoned that way, though, with no loopholes, they would have to.

I'd also like to see them REQUIRED by federal law to put in ALL the infrastructure required to support any new developments, including roads, streetlights, traffic signals, fully equipped school buildings, and whatever else is necessary to accommodate the resulting population and traffic increases.

[Leopolds Ghost]

31. Don't get me wrong--I dont support Gentrification. I picked 10 because realistically it is us & them

Something's gotta give -- there is not a limitless supply of urban land,
it has become a banned resource (like Ivory) and the rich want it. Market forces (the forces that exclude poor people from everything whenever a single rich person is around to outbid them) suggest that they will get it ALL.

Because it is a banned resource and there are enough rich people to push out all but their allies in the professional and "creative" class (many of whom they use as mere "footsoldiers" of gentrification, and have no cause to complain when they, too, are forced out to the suburbs, out to the legally prescribed non-city that surrounds every city, preventing the "market" from meeting demand.)

As a result, Developers and city officials have come to an understanding that the great Market force that prevents poor people from being made homeless is the continual depreciation and decrepitation of older buildings and entire inner suburbs, which then become suitable for the poor.

And then when those buildings are fully depreciated, they become "mature" and "ripe for redevelopment". The poor are kicked out for artists lofts who are allowed to live there just long enough to make the area seem "cool" and "safe" (from poverty of any sort).

The poor get to move to a slightly less decrepit building farther out in the suburbs, while the artists move on to the "next hot neighborhood", which is no longer infested with dangerous (and oh-so unartistic) public housing. Which is what makes it the next hot neighborhood, of course.

That is how they see society providing for people when public housing is gone.

We are "reclaiming poor neighborhoods" by throwing the poor out
and saying that whoever lives there in the future, will benefit
from the improved conditions...!

[rucky]

21. Home ownership

Put Section 8 funding into Co-ops or land contracts, and move tenants into FHA programs when they show steady income.

[Ayesha]

25. Combination of solutions

I know a few people who are poor and on disability, but have never, to my knowledge, known someone who lived in public housing. The people I know have Section 8, other subsidized housing, or live in older apartments with rent control. I wouldn't classify any of their apartments as substandard, although one has a slumlord landlord who is slow to fix things.

It seems to me that we need a combination of solutions to address the affordable housing shortage, as follows:

1. Supportive/rehabilitative housing. This would be supervised SRO-type housing for the chronically homeless, recovering addicts, severely mentally ill, and others who need help to succeed in a regular housing setting. Persons living there would have a treatment team frequently assessing their needs and progress.

2. Less supervised, but regulated, housing units. Also for recovering addicts, etc. These would be regular apartments, but to be part of this program, the persons must agree to continue rehab/AA/psychotherapy/medications etc. and to have drug tests and allow their apartment to be searched.

3. Mixed-income housing developments, with amenities such as a pool, gym, etc. to encourage community and pride in one's residence. Persons convicted of child abuse, sex crimes, attempted murder, or murder are not eligible. These requirements will help middle-income renters feel secure and make them less likely to move out.

4. Require that landlords with more than a certain number of units accept Section 8. Make sure Section 8 payments are comparable to the market rent so that landlords won't be so reluctant to accept it.

5. Build more wheelchair-accessible housing units, via regulating builders etc. There is a serious shortage of accessible units, and as an added benefit, people with disabilities often make very loyal tenants as it's hard for them to find decent housing.

6. Buy dilapidating houses or apartment buildings, fix them up, and sell them at low cost with interest free mortgages to the working poor. Again, this program can be regulated so that the houses go to hard-working families and not gangs or violent criminals. Pride in ownership really does motivate people to clean up their homes and neighborhoods.

7. Invest in the neighborhood! It's about more than just housing. Building grocery stores, other shopping, community centers etc. will help area residents achieve a better standard of living, and motivate them to report crimes, graffiti, etc.

[Leopolds Ghost]

32. Post-holiday bump -- Reading Kunstler

A devotee of Andres Duany (Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's urban planner)
and Elizabeth Platy-Zyberk, Kunstler is a neo-traditionalist who (unlike
Duany) does not believe in suburban "neo-traditional" housing pods that
must be driven into and out of. Unfortunately, he doesn't believe in
economically sustainable (post-oil) cities, either. He wants everyone
to move back to small towns and leave the suburbs to become new slums for
the poor, as is currently slated to happen. The cities, reduced in size,
will become depopulated havens for a select few, like Renaissance era rome
or modern day Venice. Unfortunately this solution to the problem (coupled
with his pragmatic endorsement of oil wars as an excellent stopgap
measure for nations addicted to oil) is exactly what developers intend to
do in the event of the current developing oil, real estate and climate
crisis -- without Kunstler's help. Unfortunately, many environmentalists
and neo-traditional planners agree with Kunstler. Since they want to
abandon New Orleans, it's no skin off their back if the rich take it over.
They regard the poor being kicked out of New Orleans' far-flung
neighborhoods to be somehow Bre'r Rabbit style benificiaries in the long
run. Of course, nobody is displacing THEM from their Upstate New York
solar powered vacation homes. I place Kunstler and similar thinkers
(Duany, etc.) somewhere on the axis between "LIVABILITY" and "NEW URBANISM" -- they basically want to reclaim the city for a select few
and sit back and allow those select few to weather the massive crises
facing the remainder of the population that will be consigned to live
in deteriorating suburban banlieux.

[dysfunctional press]

34. plans that call for relocating the urban poor to the suburbs are somewhat unrealistic...

at least in many of the suburban area in the u.s. where public transit is woefully lacking, and the infrastructure is designed for having a car. some don't even have sidewalks at all. for someone who cannot afford a car, urban areas often make much more sense.

[Leopolds Ghost]

37. Which is exactly why Duany, Kunstler, and the "new urbanites" want to move the poor there.

They find far-flung, auto-oriented suburbs undesirable and distasteful.

They find poor people undesirable and distasteful -- it's the pervfect match.

Because they associate poorly run public housing with the "intractable
social pathologies of the inner city poor" (nothing is ever said about
the social pathologies of the rural poor, which is comparably widespread
and associated with white "redneck" culture, which one Republican thinker
recently -- I think accurately -- blamed for the so-called pathologies of
the inner city, saying that all the problems and challenges of inner city
were mere extensions of the problems and challenges associated with rural
"redneck" culture in American life.)

They find the social and economic segregation and anomie of the
outer suburbs to be the perfect dumping ground for poor people who
do not "deserve" to live in economically integrated, urban settings
which Americans have no intention of creating in the first place,
because blue urbanites are so hypocritical about property values.

Proponents of OWNERSHIP (on the left and right) actually use the
property values argument in a coherent way to say, if everyone
owns land then everyone will benefit from continual rising property values.

I find it interesting that about half of DU picks one or more categories
other than "public housing is a human right".

Which is not to say there aren't a lot of viable theories out there,
but most of these theories were created to address the problems of the
middle class, not the poorest of the poor. The middle class, service
workers are prioritized for ideological reasons, the same way jobless,
landed gentry were prioritized by the Cavaliers in the 17th century.

I really think all of these categories are on a spectrum here, from one
end to the other. More than one or two at a time is mutually exclusive.

Many of these categories of urban planning are mutually hostile,
especially in their attitudes towards urban living and the poor.

It seems a lot of Democrats want to have their cake and eat it too.

Perhaps that's why so few object when Democrats vote unanimously to shut
down New Orleans public housing. They are not wedded to the idea of
public housing. And few DUers are wedded to the idea that, to tear it down
and displace the residents, would even be a situational injustice.
(relative to the present circumstances.)

I really don't see how "all of the above" is feasible.

Some planners want "normal" Americans, including the poor, to live
in the suburbs, either because they find the Suburbs more desirable
for families and people with children, or find the amenities of City
life to be casting pearls before swine with such people (LIVABILITY
and WORLD CITY proponents) who they assume will have a better time of
it in the suburbs. Or NEW URBANISTS who simply want to reclaim the
city and sucks for those who can't afford to live in a pedestrian
friendly setting with jobs nearby and housing.

Then you have the URBAN RENEWAL folks who are still around. Some of these folks are similar to new urbanists -- they find 60's style
renewal and large projects a dismal failure for design reasons, and
their solution is to build new large projects geared to a different
mix of people (i.e. upper middle class professionals who want to live
in "historic looking" subdivisions close to the CBD). Others simply
are classic urbanists who want to tear down the old city and rebuild
it in order to strengthen the city economically, and if the new
buildings are only nominally people-friendly, it is better in their
view than "tenement housing." (This is what is happening most places).

As mentioned, I am somewhere between #1 and #10 (Pragmatic opposition
to gentrification.) Tearing down public housing is a one-for-one,
dollar for dollar incentive to get developers to increase the rents
in PRIVATE housing -- perversely destroying the Section 8 program by
turning it into a subsidy for developers charging inflated rents
(due to demand) to middle class urbanites who are gaming the system.
When price gouging occurs, shit floats and the "actual" (never mind
"deserving") poor lose out.

The WELFARE REFORM and REHABILITATION folks believe that there is such
a thing as "non-deserving" poor, and Nagin has explicitly stated so and
been reelected for saying so. Most urban Dems agree with Nagin.

They do not distinguish between the so-called "non-deserving" poor
(I.e. folks who are not MERELY poor, but really most SINCERELY poor
and thus somehow less worthy of assistance) and the criminal underclass
they are forced to live side by side with, as in any slum -- urban or
rural.

This is the mainstream Democratic position and the primary source of
strength for the DLC in mobilizing "professional" class solidarity
around a "centrist" political program that the majority of "middle
class" Dems (many of whom can't afford to live in the city and assume
THEY are middle class and the persons in the city are rich "welfare
cheats" when in fact THEY are lower-middle class credit peons who
are ALSO excluded from any decent livable communities and are every
bit as unaccustomed to being able to afford livabile urban setting
as your average peasant in the Middle Ages.)

[dysfunctional press]

40. i'm more for the ownership angle myself, but not because of the idea of rising property values...

my point about ownership is simply that people tend to take better care of something they own, moreso than something they just rent.

[Cleita]

35. I think you need all of the above.

Although I live rurally now, I was a city dweller for most of my life and I feel you need public housing or a way of getting everyone a roof over their heads as a safety net. However, I am for society making it possible for the majority of citizens and residents, especially those with families, to be able to aspire towards home ownership.

I think neighborhoods should all have equal police and fire protection and that homes of all economic stratas be mixed. The rich person's mansion should be surrounded by middle class and working class housing. The people who work for Mr/Ms rich person need to have a place to live close by and in the neighborhood.

Apartments should be considered only transient housing for people who are relocating or in between owning their own homes or condos.

[Leopolds Ghost]

38. The problem is that poor people by definition can't afford condos.

And co-ops (which are not ownership per se) are being eliminated
in even the most liberal-leftist towns as "obsolete socialist experiments".

It seems the "ownership society" left wants to introduce Social Democratic
platform of universal home ownership and universal economic equality (if everyone has credit, then nobody is poor any more) the hard way, by
reducing the number of apartments on the assumption that they are only
for transients.

What very poor people aren't transient due to the marketplace? Don't
transient renters have rights, or rather to say, shouldn't we provide
as much transient housing as possible if we want to have a great city?

Artists are extremely transient, and so are most young families and
professionals, yet they are somehow more desired by most municipalities
because it is assumed they will eventually settle down and buy. Yet
renters pay more property tax per capita, even though they are poorer.
(the property tax on commercial apartments is often twice that on
homeowners, and all of the money comes from tenants -- the landlord
does not reduce his or her profits to pay property tax.)

[Cleita]

41. So you think poor people should be forced to live in apartments

never gaining equity in ownership for the rent they pay? If I had my preferences I would make ownership very easy and it could be with the right laws. What if your "rent" paid for your own property so you could acquire equity?

As a renter all my life I do resent that the money I paid in rent went to make someone else rich. I could have bought my own property many times over with my rent, but the laws didn't make it possible for a person like me to be able to aspire to ownership. I would like that to change.

[Leopolds Ghost]

42. You are living a false idea of the American Dream -- that under Dems, poor people will be rich

There will always be someone who is poor, and if they are poor then by
definition they have poor credit.

You may be surprised to learn that ownership merely means you are paying
money to the mortgage company. Who makes a killing.

Mortgage lending is far more profitable than renting affordable
apartments, a marginal trade due to high property taxes (to keep
out renters) and the fact that economically, depreciated buildings
(i.e. places with a bad location or poor upkeep) are the only places
that are economically affordable to the poor, due to inflated
construction costs and restrictive zoning clauses. And our entire
real estate market is structured around that principle (according
to a conference of leading developers and planners). This goes
for fleabag exurban townhouse "executive housing" pods every bit
as much as so-called tenements (whose property value vastly increases
the minute the tenants are moved out.)

You also appear to want a leg up on your successor tenants,
who will not be able to afford your unit if it benefits you
by going condo, in what is ultimately a Ponzi scheme of
inflated real estate values.

Barn door mentality. The American middle class and working
class has always been afflicted with a barn door mentality.

85% of owner occupied housing including townhouses is built
for the top 20% income bracket regardless of overall income
spread, according to the top 5 developers (who control 80%
of all real estate under development nationwide.) Your idea
of eliminating apartments and kicking more people into the
bottom rung of the "ownership society" only exacerbates this
supply and demand problem. The reason property values are
so inflated in the first place is the systematic elimination
of rental housing, thereby allowing neighborhoods to be
stratified according to investment quality as a real estate
proposition, i.e. income.

[Cleita]

43. Oh, I agree that the way we do home ownership today is a crime,

but I dream that with enough pressure laws can be changed so that all classes can aspire to home ownership with the exception of those who don't want to own their own property. But if property ownership becomes a right, then I can't imagine anyone wanting to throw their money away on rent unless they don't plan on being around in one area for very long.

I kind of remember back when most people lived in houses, here in the west anyway. Apartment buildings weren't that common. Even the poor lived in houses, even if they had to rent. This is where I believe the criminal element of slum landlords started by buying up cheap property and renting it back to the poor.

I would really like to see laws passed that prohibit ownership of a family home if the owners don't live there seven months out of the year and definitely that they can't rent except with special circumstances where an exception is approved by a judge like a person doing a sabbatical being able to rent their home for that year for instance. I sort of remember some laws like this in the past too. It would certainly open up the market to affordable housing for those who need it. I also hate the idea of vacation homes. Let them go stay in a hotel like everyone else.

I remember the Lennon sisters once saying that they lived in a two bedroom, one bath home in Venice and there were I think eight kids in that family. Yes, it was crowded but a home that the family owned. That same house is probably a yuppie vacation home nowdays for someone who spends a month a year there and rents it out the rest of the year. I don't know for sure but it would be fun to find out. I do know that it's probably worth half a million these days, out of the reach of a common working class family like the Lennons back in the forties and fifties.

[Leopolds Ghost]

45. Well, I think we need more rental housing in single-family areas, not less -- open up the chance to

Live in those areas for families like a friend of mine with poor job and bad credit.

In the meantime, since laws restrict renters from moving into
(traditional) small town single family houses (thanks to zoning
which was created in the 1920s to "control who lives in your community")
we need public housing because there's a shortage of rental housing for
people who may have the right, but not the money, to own.

If everyone owned a home it would require massive liquidation of
inflated property values designed to benefit half the population
at the expense of the other half, in order to drive down property
values to the point where everyone could own without having to
pay zero money down, falsify their credit report to obtain a
high-interest loan, and otherwise become far more exploited by
the mortgage company than they were by the landlord.

I disagree with Kunstler's new urbanist insistance on abandoning
the big city for walkable small towns (much as I support walkable
small towns) but he has it right, that homeownership in America
is only an investment for the poor because of continually rising
home prices which are made possible by continually escalating
population pressures and cheap oil. What happens when that
changes? Do Americans have the right to sell their property to
a first-time (say, immigrant) homebuyer for more than they
bought it? Should minority homeowners in the inner city count
their blessings that they cashed OUT of the supposedly hot
inner city market when crime, abandonment and high property taxes
motivated by developers who want to gentrify the neighborhood?
What if they used the money to buy next door? The new owners
generally don't appreciate their continued presence in the
neighborhood, anecdotal evidence has shown. It keeps the
machine of rising property values from functioning smoothly,
unless there is a continuing ladder of upward mobility where
the rich move to poorer areas and buy, the poor move to poorer
areas and buy, etc. So the only losers are the people who
buy late -- the immigrants packing into suburban barrios, the
displaced refugees from the last remaining apartment complexes.
Don't forget that apartments used to be nice, "garden" apartments
used to have actual gardens before zoning laws mandated acres
of parking, fencing to protect the surrounding neighborhood
from the nefarious renters, and the like.

[Cleita]

47. I lived in city apartment rentals all my life and I am no fan

of apartment living, especially the insecurity of having my rent jacked up on the landlord's say so because of market values. Home ownership, even of a small mobile on a small plot of land is so much better, which is what I have now. My mobile actually has less floor and closet space than my last apartment, but having that little plot of land makes such a big difference in me feeling secure that the trade off is worth it.

I think home ownership should be a right. If we could get our pols to pass laws so that poor people could aspire to home ownership like we had back in the forties and early fifties, it would get many poor people situated and on their way to being middle class. Having to pay rent keeps poor people poor because they get no equity for the rent money like they would if they could put it into their own home ownership.

[SoCalDem]

36. There's more to "housing" than just a roof over one's head

Poor people move A LOT.. They have to because their jobs are not secure, and they change jobs often. They often have no reliable transportation, so where they live has to be accomodating to their shift work/sketchy jobs. Child care is also a big issue for them, as is transportation for their kids to school.

What would help more, is a guaranteed "income" for all citizens (yeh, I know ..sounds socialistic), and a realistic "poverty line".

Low income housing is a must, but it cannot be relegated to only one part of town, since the jobs are often NOT there. If one makes minimum or near minimum wages and has a few jobs,they cannot afford excess commuting costs, and often the child care is in another direction completely.

If subsidized housing depends on income, the cost rises as the income rises, so the people on assistance never really gain, they just continue to tread water, just one disaster away from being on the street.

The way we "do" assistance is a very "white missionary" style, where people assess the worthiness of applicants, based on lifestyles that many of the missionaries do not even understand.

Cannibal capitalism devours poor people.... it always has, and it always will.

Assistance is seen as charity, and that grinds what little self esteem that the poor have left.

Home ownership is unrealistic for most poor people.
Rent that "costs" them 1/4 or less of their NET monthly income would go a long way towards really helping them, but for middle classers who may own the property and rent it as THEIR source of income, it's unrealistic to expect THEM to willingly subsidize the poorest of the poor.
The nut at the middle of the problem is family INCOME.. When there is adequate income, there is adequate housing

[Leopolds Ghost]

39. The only long-term solution to the housing crisis is to eliminate zoning

Whose sole purpose is to keep upscale neighborhoods upscale.

(M.I.T's original handbook on zoning, addressed to
city administrators and homeowners associations --
"Control who lives in your community!")

by actively restricting affordable apartments in so-called
"single family" zones (which make it all but impossible to
build affordable add-on units, european style walk-ups are
actively illegal in this country with NO exceptions, and
parking is required even in the inner city, which means
garden apartments with actual gardens, like those in New
Orleans, cannot be rebuilt without paving over the courtyards.
And half the cost of new construction is in parking and
foundation work, thanks to overly stringent code designed
to appeal to neighboring property owners afraid of "blight".

The degree of economic and even racial segregation we have
thanks to zoning and the automobile was unheard of even
before the Civil War.

In the meantime, "de-densifying" inner city areas from
four stories to two stories, or adding parking to attract
"middle class" homebuyers and upping the rents accordingly,
is a losing proposition regardless.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

44. It's unfair, a weakness, to fail to acknowledge that,...

,...there are those who simply CAN'T function within the existent framework.

It's also unfair to push square pegs into round holes.

Where is flexibility built into these propositions?

Everyone has something to contribute BUT not necessarily within the frameworks presented.

[Leopolds Ghost]

46. Urban planning is a very absolutist science, modernist in origin

Postmodernists gravitate more towards architecture.

Their urban planning is nonexistent -- "make it look historic"
or "make it look modern" and it is modern, to a postmodernist.

Urban planners tend to be idealists who view everything
the same way instead of trying to see beyond and focus
on what Jane Jacobs (a non-professional) called the
fine-grained details of urban life, the uniquenesses
that don't fit the model.

Trying to get every city to match an ideal uniform American
pattern kills uniqueness and kills integration for that matter
because when it comes down to it, integration is a disorderly
process. "Progressivism" was invented by urban planners who
sought to eliminate disorder in the inner city by displacing
and/or bettering the condition of the poor. They did this
by tearing down slums and building hospitals and the like.
I don't like to call myself a progressive due to its historically
middle class disregard for the poor -- viewing them as a problem
that must be solved instead of as individuals who each have
their own problems and who are neighbors who must be helped

(of course under most systems of thought today, the poor are
no longer neighbors to the rich, which is the source of the
suburban shift to right-wing politics among Democrats and
Republicans these past 25 years.)

[AngryAmish]

48. People of different social classes want different services

In a rich neighborhood, people want nice restaurants, boutiques and the like. Poor people don't use Starbucks everyday. Middle class folks want Target. None of these things are exclusive of course. But the businesses of a neighborhood reflect the people that live there.

So rich people neither want nor use a public health clinic. Whole Foods would not do a lot of business where a lot of folks are on food stamps and there are cheaper alternatives.


What does this mean? People live near people like themselves because they have similar interests and desires. The neighborhood usually reflects that.