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 […]
Short-Term Stimulus and Planning for the Long Term
Everyone’s excited about the money pouring, or rather trickling, out of the federal government in the form of economic stimulus. As is the case with many grants, loans and other […]
A Third Strand of Sustainable Housing
There’s quite a jumble of tools out there for people who want to make their houses into models of energy efficiency. As far as the best way to go about […]
Detroit as a Test Site of the Green Future
Recently a group of planners, including long-time NHI researcher Alan Mallach, visited Detroit to survey the city’s vast vacant spaces and make recommendations on how to re-organize the city for […]
Homeownership Done Right
While the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance is helping people buy homes, their aim is to build an army of trained homeowners to engage their own neighbors in organizing and advocacy.
Bringing Victims of Foreclosure Back Home
It was often disappointing during the long housing boom to see the affordable housing stock continue to dwindle even as CDCs continued to build more supply. In a somewhat similar […]
Bring the Green to Rental Buildings
Given all the emphasis on green jobs and energy efficiency in the Obama administration, it’s not surprising that these uses are targeted by a huge chunk of the economic stimulus […]
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 […]
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 […]
Get Your Green On
In general, most efforts to develop “green infrastructure” at the neighborhood level have been volunteer-led, grassroots efforts. City governments don’t tend to take the lead on creating pocket parks and […]
The Mystery of a Mere Idea
Compelling ideas are all you need to start a revolution. That could be one lesson to take from the experience of Van Jones, the green jobs activist from Oakland. Jones […]
Commuter Rail�s Promise
The battle over what sort of transportation projects to include in the economic stimulus package centered around whether to emphasize the same old highway subsidies or to push more progressive […]