Sep/Oct 2003
Issue #131
Zoning for Justice
As the “starving the beast” trend accelerates, responsibility for ensuring affordable and equitable housing will fall more heavily on state and local governments. Inevitably, that means even more work for advocacy groups who must hold government officials accountable for addressing the housing needs of all of their constituents. In this issue, we look at the efforts in places as diverse as Los Angeles; Montgomery County, Maryland; and the New York City suburb of Long Island to make sure housing is affordable in their communities through inclusionary zoning. As one policy analyst notes in the article, inclusionary zoning isn’t a panacea, but it can be an important statement by a municipality that changes the dynamics of the development process. On another front, community development corporations are taking the lead in reviving weak market cities, such as Philadelphia and Cleveland, that are experiencing population loss, housing abandonment and stagnant economies.
Freddie and Fannie Under Fire
This has been a long, hot summer for executives at Freddie Mac. What at first appeared to be a disagreement over arcane accounting rules turned into much more when Freddie […]
Strengthening Weak Market Cities
The decade of the 1990s was a time of growth for some, but not all, American cities. Fifty-five percent of metropolitan areas with populations over 100,000 saw their populations diminish, […]
The Fight Over Low-Income Housing
In 1995 Buckeye Community Hope Foundation decided to build a 72-unit tax credit apartment complex in Cuyahoga Falls, a city with a population of roughly 50,000 situated between Akron and […]
No Shelter in the Storm
For those of us in the business of forecasting the future prospects of affordable housing development, the Supreme Court’s March 2003 decision in City of Cuyahoga Falls v. Buckeye Community […]
The World As It Should Be
This is a time of anxiety over national security, tax cuts for the rich and high unemployment. National policy starves the federal government of funds for housing and other programs […]
The Shrinking Heart of Government
Conservative economists call it starving the beast: cutting taxes to force belt-tightening, drastically reducing public spending and shrinking “big government.” In a recent article, Princeton economist Paul Krugman describes the […]
Shelter Shorts
Foundation Follies I Foundation executives lobbied hard to kill an amendment in the Charitable Giving Act of 2003 that would have forced foundations to spend more of their assets on […]
Building the Political Will to End Homelessness
“Ending homelessness” has become something of a watchword in Washington, yet it is utterly bereft of meaning. The nation’s poor are facing the country’s biggest job and housing crisis since […]
Trends for Funding CDC Commercial Projects
Community development corporations seeking financing for economic development initiatives are increasingly turning to nontraditional federal funds, tax credits and private sector collaborations. Historically, CDCs relied on Department of Health and […]
The Community Economic Development Handbook
The Community Economic Development Handbook: Strategies and Tools to Revitalize Your Neighborhood, by Mihailo Temali. Amherst H. Wilder Foundation (www.wilder.org). 2002. 288 pp. $35 (paperback).. As a community economic development […]
In response to:
I am writing regarding an article entitled, “Affordable Forever,” by Winton Pitcoff, published in your February 2002 issue. [T]he article states that the “Owners of First Homes’ CLT houses can […]