Re: Housing and Urban Decline

>
> What is the best way to quickly contain this housing epidemic?
> In what ways could Rental programs affect stabilizing a high-density
> urban village?
>

Jane Jacobs (*The Death & Life of Great American Cities*) has said that
neighborhoods improve as the residents become financially successful,
choose to stay, and buy into the neighborhood. She also points out the new
housing is invariably the most expensive & that attempts to "renew"
neighborhoods by demolition and new construction fail in a number of ways;
I'd say that point has been amply demonstrated by history.

One needs a two-pronged approach, I think. On the one hand, the existing
neighborhood organizations must be supported. Governmental institutions
must be persuaded to support, rather than tear down, the residents--one
might wish to begin by finding another word than "epidemic"; defining
people's houses as a disease is hardly supportive! In addition, if there
is, for instance, a pervasive pattern of police abuses, this must be
curbed, the schools must be made to work (a counsel of perfection in these
cheap times, I fear). On the other hand, the banks, insurance companies,
and landlords must be persuaded to support gradual improvement; the
preference is definitely for the kind of dramatic financial gains that
"redevelopment" brings, with all the attendant problems for the residents.

R.
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