December 2008

  • Will The Creative Class Fly Back?

    Perhaps this is a pointer to where America’s recovery will come from. Some of the less fashionable parts of the country may quietly get on with the business of growing. Places like Chattanooga. And like Buffalo, New York, which did not experience a great boom, but may also largely miss out on the bust—while growing jobs in the public sector and health care. And like many other areas that don’t make the headlines. — Chattanooga vrrrm vrrrm, The Economist blog Basic economics asserts that capital flows from high-wealth areas to low-wealth areas to take advantage of the increased return on investment these areas offer. The economic miracles of southeast Asia have illustrated this principle on a global scale; as we emerge from the panic of 2008, could America’s beleaguered post-industrial cities illustrate this principle on a national scale? more

  • The Felt Factor

    With all this talk of sustainable communities, how come we tend to exclude, at least in conversation, the very thing that can educate community members: the media? Would it be fair to say that in addition to a media outlet’s…

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    For The Holidays: These Are a Few of My Favorite…Places

    Herewith, some of my very favorite smart, livable places that are contributing positively to the environment, as I’ve written about them on my NRDC blog over the past year. When my colleague Ian Wilker first approached me about blogging, I’m…

  • A Few Slightly Radical Ideas to Ponder

    Here’s a handful of somewhat radical planning ideas to ponder as we enter the Great Mini-Depression: I am wondering what sort of innovations will go mainstream in this strange new age. General Motors is busy touting a plug-in electric car…

  • The Chicago Sit-in: Has Obama’s Election Spurred a New Mood of Union Activism?

    Editor’s Note: This article by Peter Dreier, NHI board member and professor of politics at Occidental College, first appeared in Dissent Magazine Two recent union victories may be harbingers of renewed worker activism. One came quickly in the wake of the ever-increasing economic meltdown. The other arrived after years of unsuccessful effort. Both reflect the optimism spurred by the Obama administration that has not yet taken power. For six days in early December, 240 members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), a small but feisty union that has always been in the labor movement’s progressive wing, illegally occupied the manufacturing plant of Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago after their employer abruptly told them that it was shutting down the factory. Their bold action worked. They got what they demanded—sixty days of severance pay, earned vacation pay, and two months of health insurance coverage. more

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    Chicago Factory Occupation Victory Is Only The Beginning

    In the past few days we’ve seen news of 3,500 jobs to be lost by the closing of U.S. Steel facilities in Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota; a fan factory laying off 164 workers in Wisconsin; and thousands of auto industry…

  • Remaking HUD

    Shaun Donovan, President-elect Barack Obama’s pick to head HUD, appears to be an indication that this could be the urban policy president we’ve been hoping for. It’s no secret that for far too long, the department of Housing and Urban…

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    New President, “New Deal”: New Plan?

    With the scramble for Pennsylvania’s natural gas reserves growing in its news coverage, we are reminded that one reason the Rust Belt was industrialized to begin with was for its abundance of natural resources. Over a century ago, industrial proto-magnates…

  • Questioning the Bailout

    In the forthcoming issue of Shelterforce is an item about Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren, chair of the oversight panel formed to monitor the federal bailout for the ailing economy, and her conclusion that the government has thus far resorted…

  • Density Revisited

    This past summer, I wrote a feature for Shelterforce about a community where a CDC was battling a NIMBY mentality. The CDC was trying to build neighborhood support for over a hundred units of new market and affordable housing in…

  • Reading the Tea Leaves: How Obama’s HUD Transition Team Might Reshape Housing Policy

    Through Change.gov, the public is being offered a first-ever opportunity to peek inside and offer opinion on nearly the entire transition process. A large team of academics, former bureacrats, and leading advocates have been appointed by President-Elect Obama to vet…

  • Walt Weighs In On The Economy

    So this is weird: December 5 is Walt Disney’s birthday and I get these two separate Disney things in the e-mail from different people but not entirely unconnected — both relate to our precarious economy. The first to arrive was…

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    Foreclosure Nightmare Continues for “Famous” Chicago Renters

    Esteban Cruz digs his hands into a big plastic tub of letters and documents bundled and labeled by month. This mass of paper represents the past year the tenants of his building in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood have been fighting eviction since their building was foreclosed upon and the owner disappeared. The tenants, mostly families from Mexico who have lived in the building 10 years or more, are like tens of thousands of families around the country facing foreclosure and eviction even though they have been paying their rent on time. Esteban and his neighbors got national attention last summer when with the help of the Albany Park Neighborhood Council they convinced sheriff Tom Dart to suspend evictions of renters. Their situation and advocacy also pushed the state government to change laws giving renters more protections. But despite all this attention – People Magazine even came with makeup artists to photograph them — and a protective order from a housing court judge, their nightmare continues. more

  • History of the World (Part II)

    Deja vu: the sensation that you are doing something that you have done before. In an eerily familiar Web-only piece, Laura Brunts and Theodore Kahn of The Atlantic recap vintage coverage of America’s appraisal of its financial misdeeds in the…

  • “No Home, No Job, No Peace, No Rest”

    My son downloaded “The Ghost of Tom Joad” by Bruce Springsteen with Tom Morello on my iPod a couple of months ago. During this past Thanksgiving week, we went together to see Morello perform as The Nightwatchman. With all due respect to The Boss, Morello now owns this song. As we all countdown to Jan. 20, these lyrics in the headline above may serve as the best anthem for the transition from the Bush legacy of a wrecked economy to our collective Obama hopes for change. As Citibank reaches out for the latest lifeline in billions, homeowners remain adrift in a rising sea of foreclosures. The Chicago Tribune on Thanksgiving (Nov. 27, 2008) ran a chart breaking out the $8.5 TRILLION that the U.S. government has committed to rescuing Wall Street and our “crippled financial system.” And you thought it was only Henry Paulson’s $700 billion. more