August 2009

  • Green Jobs For Real?

    Folks in Massachusetts searching for all those green jobs Obama’s promised, including jobs for the working and middle classes, recently got a little better grip on how many such jobs are likely to materialize in the next few years. A local green consultant, talking specifically about jobs retrofitting older homes to make them more energy efficient, says it only took 39 full-time people last year to conduct energy audits on over 19,000 homes in Massachusetts. That’s around 500 houses per person. There’s a similar level of productivity for people installing weatherstripping or insulation. Granted, a lot of these audits, performed by utility companies mainly to meet a state requirement, were probably pretty meager and missed a lot of opportunities for deeper retrofits. But ya gotta start somewhere. At first glance, the numbers suggest there couldn’t really be that much work available for people doing this stuff. But the consultant says we are on the verge of a ramp-up in funding for energy efficiency programs in Massachusetts, triggered by a state legislative mandate to cut greenhouse gas emissions. By 2011, the number of energy auditors statewide will more than double, and there will be similar increases in workers doing weatherization. Every $1 million invested in these kinds of energy retrofits generates 8 to 11 new jobs, plus indirect support jobs, according to one study. Given that Massachusetts will go from $86 million in funding for retrofits in 2008 to $322 million in 2012, we could see some pretty substantive job creation here. The next question is who will get the jobs. Community Labor United and the Boston Green Justice Coalition are organizing to make sure it isn’t only folks who already are in the construction trades and unions, although those workers need to eat too. Read their Green Solution for more. more

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    Lion of the Senate

    We mourn the passing of Sen. Edward Kennedy today not only for his definitive role in a significant slice of Americana, but also for his role a true progressive leader. He was flawed, for sure, but his conviction for causes…

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    It Takes a Village to Age In Place

    A major challenge that has come with sprawl over the last half-century has been that growing up, maturing, and growing older has required, more often than not, moving to a new community at each new stage. This is largely because…

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    Don’t Like 40B? Plan for Affordable Housing

    It seems that opponents of Massachusetts’s “40B” affordable housing law, which lets developers build higher density housing in unaffordable communities if they set aside affordable units, are gearing up for another petition drive to repeal it. They say this time…

  • Karl Rove v. ACORN

    Now we know that Karl Rove spearheaded the firing of David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico who refused to follow the Bush White House’s orders to intimidate low-income voters by making false charges of “voter fraud.” What The…

  • …At Your Own Risk

    Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey’s piece in The Wall Street Journal, “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare,” touted his own company’s health insurance policy, offered half-baked, pie-in-the-sky solutions (“make it easier for individuals to make voluntary, tax-deductible donation[s] to…

  • Locavores, Beware

    Think all planning and community development should be local? Think again, said a judge on Monday when she told a New York State county to force dozens of towns and villages within its borders to get serious about fair housing.…

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    The Smarter Cities Project Wants Your Input on Sustainability Criteria

    As some of you may know, Smarter Cities is an initiative that ranks US cities on a number of key sustainability criteria as well as on overall sustainability. The system has been developed, managed and staffed independently of NRDC, but…

  • Right Wing Taking Cues From Saul Alinsky?

    On his Comm-Org listserv, Randy Stoecker, a professor in the Community and Environmental Sociology department at the University of Wisconsin, talks about an emerging meme comparing the right wing activists’ recent disruptions of health care forums to “Alinsky’s tactics.” “I…

  • Subprime and the Myth of Increasing Homeownership

    Alyssa Katz notes that a couple analyses show that the increase in foreclosures caused by subprime mortgages more than outweighed the new first-time homeowners it generated. “So please, no more of this ‘don’t forget that subprime helped more people become homeowners’ crap — it didn’t,” she says. She’s right, of course. But where and how should we fit CDC and CDFI lending into this picture? By some people’s accounting, some of the responsible, well-vetted, and (at least until this year) well-performing loans made by community groups would also be considered subprime by their LTV ratios or other measures. Should they get a pass, and maybe a different term? Certainly they were not the root problem of this crisis, and the clamp-down on credit terms is hampering what many see as the best revitalization strategy available. But, while they were not fraudulent, badly underwritten hard sells, did those loans still push some people into homeownership who weren’t ready? Are >100% LTV ratios (just as an example) something that CDCs can wield successfully while others can’t, or is it better for everyone if they stay gone for good? more

  • California Off a Cliff

    Hey everybody, have you heard? The California legislature finally passed a budget plan on July 21 (the constitutional deadline is June 15). The state famously began paying bills with IOUs on July 2. These get paid back with interest, so for each day the budget was late, California went deeper into the hole. It wasn’t as if the Democratic leadership wasn’t diligent. When the Democratic budget proposal that included some tax hikes to balance deep cuts got voted down on June 24, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and President pro tem Darryl Steinberg came back the next day with another plan. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected it, with support from the legislative Republican minority. Our state budget is late every damn year. California is one of three states that requires more than a simple majority vote to approve a budget. (Howdy Arkansas! How’s it going, Rhode Island? You guys late on your bills and in terrible debt, too?) more

  • Housing as Economic Growth? Strange Idea, But Not in Massachusetts

    Given the pain so many states such as California and Florida are suffering because they have a glut of new, empty houses, and given that Massachusetts has weathered the recession better than a lot of those states, I was somewhat…

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    Prove You Own My Loan

    When I first heard of the case of Mamie Ruth Palmer, which hit the news about a year ago, it sounded like quintessential poetic justice: A homeowner who had filed for bankruptcy protection and was still making mortgage payments is fighting to keep her home, and eventually wins due to the murky ownership status of her loan—seems Bank of New York (or, more likely, its servicer) initiated foreclosure proceedings two months before it could prove that it actually owned the loan. She not only saved her loan, but got her principal knocked way down, fees rescinded, and lawyer’s fees covered. Since the lack of attention to the specifics of what loans were being made, and where, and what loans were being bought and when, was such a big part of the foreclosure crisis, it’s satisfying to see that come home to roost. But was it replicable? Could it become an activist tactic? After all, lawyers always say to argue jurisdiction first, right? more