#157 Spring 2009 — Foreclosure Crisis

Crossing Silos: HUD, DOT, and Sustainable Communities

The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation have unveiled a new partnership to help families gain better access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and […]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation have unveiled a new partnership to help families gain better access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs. The partnership eyes a reduction of housing and commuter costs by encouraging affordable, sustainable communities.

When the new initiative was announced in March, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and DOT Secretary Ray LaHood first discussed their plans for sustainable communities at a U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing hearing titled, “Livable Communities, Transit Oriented Development, and “Incorporating Green Building Practices into Federal Housing and Transportation.”

An interagency task force was subsequently assembled to encourage federal transportation and housing investments and to identify strategies for affordable housing near places of employment, as well as pushing for lower transportation costs and shorter commutes (see Justin Massa’s “Equity 2.0: The Missing Pieces.”)

OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE

  • The Continued Importance of Fair Lending in the Age of Obama

    June 4, 2009

    Housing discrimination continues to plague the market, as does the myth that the housing crisis resulted from extending homeownership and home mortgage credit to historically underserved groups: minority families. Even with the Obama administration's Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan and, within that, the Making Home Affordable program, minority groups continue to suffer ongoing discrimination and fair housing violations.

  • Can the Silk City Forge its Next Industrial Revolution?

    June 4, 2009

    New Jersey's Paterson is among the nation's oldest planned industrial cities, but it has fallen on hard times since the once-booming silk industry there declined in the latter half of the 20th century. Much of the industry in this city of 150,000 has since left, but now a geological attraction once envisioned by Alexander Hamilton as something that could be harnessed for industrial might, is fully protected, and could be channeled, this time, for its community-building potential.

  • Organizing Lessons from Allen Parkway Village

    June 4, 2009

    When Lenwood E. Johnson, the son of Texas sharecroppers, moved into Houston’s Allen Parkway Village project housing, the Freedmen’s Town section of the city had yet to be designated historic, […]