Liveblog
Correspondents Duncan Black (Eschaton), Brentin Mock (The American Prospect), Reihan Salam (The Atlantic), Ryan Avent (Grist), Harry Moroz and John Petro (Drum Major Institute) and Diana Lind (Next American City) bring you live updates from the A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Transforming America’s Housing Policy conference.
Conference presented by the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, the MacArthur Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
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If You Want to be Good to Nature, Stay Away From It | Feb 12th at 12:54pm
Ed Glaeser begins the conference with a great anecdote. Henry David Thoreau, “patron saint of the environment,” was having a picnic at Walden Pond when he started a fire by mistake. The fire spread and ended up consuming 300 acres of forest. Apparently, no one did more damage to Concord, Mass. nature than Thoreau. Glaeser’s take on it: if you want to be good to nature, stay away from it. In other words, is he suggesting that urban centers are kind to the environment? Meanwhile, he moves on to discuss the environmental benefits of building densely in face of the tax policies that promote single-family homes.
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And The Conference Begins | Feb 12th at 12:53pm
The description of the first panel contains the question, “How can the federal government encourage more sustainable housing development in denser, less-auto-dependent, more energy efficient communities?” There is a big assumption in there, specifically that there’s rough consensus, both among Serious Thinking Elites, and the country generally, that these are important and worthy goals.
The first presenter is Ed Glaeser, someone I actually a bit knew back in my previous life as an economist. He’s laying out 3 policy problems:
1) Failure to tax/price carbon correctly.
2) Federal tax policy encourages people to buy larger houses than the otherwise would
3) “Draconian land use restrictions” do a lot to make housing less affordable. -
Making Housing Affordable and Sustainable: Densificaiton is the key | Feb 12th at 12:40pm
All of the panelists agree that increasing the densities of our communities is key in making our housing more affordable and our living patterns more sustainable. However, Enrique Penalosa, former mayor of Bogota, Columbia, pointed out that most Americans do not want to live in more dense environments. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center showed that when Americans are asked about what their ideal community type would be, 30% say they would most like to live in a small town, 25% in a suburb, 23% in a city and 21% in a rural area.
I would argue that, while this is currently the case, we are beginning to see a shift of preferences in community types. Younger generations are no longer clamoring for a house in the suburbs and a two car garage. Indeed, the study points out that younger people prefer cities over suburbs or small towns. Whether these individuals will still prefer cities as they get older and have families is uncertain.
Mr. Penalosa suggested that cities should focus on providing the types of services and amenities that the suburbs offer. Of course a city dweller will not be able to have as much personal green space or personal living space as a suburban homeowner, at least for the same amount of money. But cities can provide some of these goods through improving the public realm. Mary Nichols of the California Air Resources Board suggested that cities should provide increased community benefits to those communities that agree to increased density.
One way of achieving this is through Tax Increment Financing districts. These districts capture a portion of the increased property values and sends it back to the community. So, if a community were to agree to a rezoning that increases the allowed density, the land values of that area would likely increase, since landowners and developers can fit more units on a parcel of land. A portion of these increased property values is captured and spent on improvements in the district, such as transit improvements, new public buildings such as libraries, improving schools, and increasing the amount or quality of parks or public plazas. In San Francisco, developers pay a fee that goes into community improvements as part of the new Eastern Neighborhoods Plan.
Portland, on the other hand, is taking steps to change the types of housing options in the city that would appeal to those who are looking for more greenspace.
In 2007, the City of Portland invited architects from around the world to share ideas on the design possibilities of housing oriented to shared courtyards. Portland is promoting courtyard housing as an additional infill housing type that can provide a quality living environment at densities higher than conventional detached housing.
• How can courtyard housing be designed to serve as an attractive option for families with children?
• How can courtyards serve as useable outdoor space while also providing environmental sustainability benefits, act as a setting for community interaction while also respecting privacy needs, or serve as a pedestrian-oriented space while also accommodating cars?
• How can courtyard housing avoid a purely inward focus and contribute to Portland’s tradition of street-oriented urbanism?
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Welcome to the Liveblog! | Feb 11th at 4:14pm
Over the next two days, a total of seven different voices will be documenting the conference A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Transforming America’s Housing Policy. The agenda for the event couldn’t be more exciting — it’s clear that a lot of thought went into determining the most essential topics.
We have five major panels in store: 1) Connecting the Dots Between Housing, Transportation, Energy and the Environment; 2) From Front Yards to Schoolyards: Linking Housing Policy and School Reform; 3) Where Do We Go From Here?: The Future of Fannie and Freddie; 4) Reclaiming the Promise of Homeownership: New Models to Help First-Time
Homebuyers Achieve Stability and Build Wealth; 5) Affordable Rental Housing Programs: Building Real Opportunities for Families
Additional speeches will be made by Shaun Donovan, Secretary of HUD; Bruce Katz, Vice President and Director of the Metropolitan Policy Project, The Brookings Institution; and others.
But this liveblog is meant to do more than praise — there should be some healthy doses of skepticism. It’s clear that a crisis can be an opportunity for change — but how do we discuss the best steps forward when there’s so much uncertainty about what the economy will look like at the end of 2009?
