April 2009

  • History of the Housing Market

    Here’s a cool animation of something we’re all too familiar with. subprime from beeple on Vimeo. more

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    Considering the Role of Density in Sustainable Development

    Later this week, I am going to be participating with my friend David Dixon and marketing whiz Laurie Volk in a seminar on development density at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Architects. Our session is titled “Making…

  • Flint: The Un-Sprawl

    You’ve probably seen the most recent story in The New York Times about the troubles facing Flint, Mich. and the latest in an ongoing dialogue examining shutting down parts of the city: an exercise in “planned shrinkage.” Planned shrinkage became…

  • Donovan Touts Administration’s Housing Policies, Though Acknowledges “Daunting Set of Challenges”

    WASHINGTON — Addressing a crowd of low income housing advocates, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan promoted the Obama administration’s housing policy here, but acknowledged that while “there’s great opportunity in crisis, there’s also crisis in crisis.” Donovan’s remarks were delivered to…

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    My Favorite Revitalization Story: The Rebirth Of Old North

    My view is that no other single category of activity is more important to sustainable development than revitalization. When done properly, it’s great for residents old and new, great for cities, and great for the environment. One would be hard…

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    Rail Time Enthusiasm

    Summoning the ghost of Eisenhower, President Obama announced yesterday “a new era in American train travel” involving an $8 billion “down payment” for, and subsequent billion-dollar supplements every five years on a comprehensive high-speed rail system.The funding is part of…

  • Make Your Voice Heard

    What should you do if you’re politically progressive or even if you label yourself a liberal, or a Democrat but are unhappy about the direction of New Jersey’s government? You should attend a great conference on Saturday, April 18th being…

  • How Much Bailout Money Did Your Bank Get?

    Here’s an informative resource assembled by The New York Times online that outlines the hundreds of banks, automakers, and insurers that have applied for funding from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program Is your bank, automaker, or insurer on…

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    Giving New Meaning to “Green Transit”

    In the US, we tend to think of public transportation as inherently green, which of course it is compared to our addiction to driving. It becomes even more so when old diesel buses are replaced with models running on natural…

  • Three Ways Not to Transform Parks — And One That Can Work

    Back when I was a local reporter, I witnessed the unfortunate demise of a beloved neighborhood park in Malden, Massachusetts. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. had been involved in the park’s design at the dawn of the 20th century. But local…

  • Gonzo Realty

    I hate when I’m late to arrive on a story, but here’s an excellent profile from The Los Angeles Times on Jim Klinge, the Realtor-cum-blogger who, expressing pre-burst housing bubble incredulity, started taking his message to the Web. The broker,…

  • Banks Sitting on Foreclosed Homes

    Here’s an interesting piece from the San Francisco Chronicle reporting on a “shadow inventory” of foreclosed houses — possibly 600,000 nationwide — that have not been placed on the market. Lenders nationwide are sitting on hundreds of thousands of foreclosed…

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    When the Market Recovers, Smart Growth Will Claim a Larger Share

    Even before the recession began, the market for residential and commercial property in the US was changing away from a model of unmitigated suburban sprawl and toward one of more central locations, urbanity, and walkable neighborhoods. The foreclosure crisis, spike…

  • Foreclosure Holiday at Fan & Fred Comes to an End

    There weren’t any splashy headlines like there were when, just before the holidays, GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced a foreclosure moratorium, but last week, that freeze came to an end. The ban applied to foreclosure sales and evictions from houses owned by the mortgage giants as the government tried to come up with homeowner rescue plans. Since then, the Obama administration unveiled its Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan to support low mortgage rates by “strengthening confidence” in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by giving $200 billion to the government-controlled mortgage finance companies, as well as the $75 billion Making Home Affordable program. The foreclosure moratorium, initially set to expire on January 9, was extended repeatedly since that date, but was finally lifted in light of the administration’s initiatives. According to a Fannie Mae statement that was reported by Rooflines friend Mary Kane in The Washington Independent, “foreclosure sale may not occur on any Fannie Mae loan until the loan servicer verifies that the borrower is ineligible for a Home Affordable Modification and all other foreclosure prevention alternatives have been exhausted.” more

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    Great Falls And The Silk City

    PATERSON, NJ — It’s early February and the air temperature hovers in the low teens — never mind the windchill that could only be tolerable to a Midwesterner. But despite the cold temperatures, the Great Falls, a geological oasis in…

  • Big City Papers: Do We Even Need Them?

    There’s been a number of news items on Rooflines in recent months about how the recession has finally led to the demise of many big-city newspapers that for years have tottered on the brink. Add my hometown paper, The Boston…

  • Mapping the Meltdown (And Some Possible Exits)

    If you’ve ever had occasion in your life to stop and ask yourself “How did I end up HERE?” you already know you don’t say that when good things are happening. Listening to economic news lately is the same thing–so many “billions” and “trillions” thrown around — you might feel just a little queasy as you ask — how did we get here? The Nation magazine and Nation Books have come up with a fairly palatable way to answer the awful question in a collection of articles called Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover. The editors — Nation editor and publisher Katrina Vanden Huevel listed as lead author — organized a book of articles from The Nation that charts the entire meltdown, from its origins through possible ways out. more

  • Ease Guidelines=Market Rally

    It’s amazing what accounts for a market rally. Are we starting to see a pattern here? While the MSM still insists on using the Dow Jones Industrial Average in taking the temperature of public policy, it’s clear that the “markets” are not fond of being held down. Is the Dow reaching over 8000 for the first time in almost two months an economic indicator, or simply a characteristic of an increasingly fickle market? From a report today in The New York Times: The board that sets United States accounting standards is giving companies more leeway when valuing assets, a potential lift to battered banks’ balance sheets. The independent Financial Accounting Standards Board voted to adopt guidelines under the so-called mark-to-market accounting rules, which require companies to value assets at prices reflecting current market conditions…The changes could reduce the losses banks have been forced to report as the values of their mortgage-backed securities have crumbled. The decision will allow the assets to be valued at what they would go for in an “orderly” sale, as opposed to a forced or distressed sale. The new guidelines will apply to the second quarter that began this month. The mark-to-market rules have forced banks to take steep write-downs on some assets, especially securities tied to high-risk subprime mortgages. The Dow was up over 300 points at the publishing of this post. See article link here. more

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    Modern Community Development for a Modern Crisis

    NEWARK, NJ—Urban Essex County, New Jersey, one of the hardest hit areas in the state by the ongoing foreclosure crisis, could be the laboratory for an ostensible reinvention of community development, as a local CDC there announced today the successful…