Miriam Axel-Lute
Miriam Axel-Lute is editor of Shelterforce and associate director of the National Housing Institute. She lives in Albany, New York, where she serves on the Community Development Alliance board.
Journey to Work: What About Bikes?
In a fascinating post over at Next American City, Dave Steele observes a big divide among bike commuters: the affluent, geared-up, environmentalist, health-conscious cyclists...
Keeping Houses Occupied
Most of the problems foreclosed properties cause come because they tend to become vacant and stay vacant for a while. Often a homeowner flees...
Buffaloonly Problems
I was a little premature in celebrating New York’s modest land bank bill, it seems, as it has not yet been signed by the...
Small Cities: Stepchildren No Longer
What do you know about New Bedford, Altoona, or Terre Haute? Should we figure that big-city revitalization work will just trickle down to these...
“No Pain,” But Lots of Spin
Columbia Deal Avoids Eminent Domain Pain trumpeted yesterday’s New York Post headline. After all the struggle over Columbia University’s plan for a new campus...
Memphis’s Unwelcome News
Hanna Rosin has caused quite a stir with her dramatically titled Atlantic Monthly article American Murder Mystery. (For the record, we writers rarely get...
Good News—New York State Style
New York state has been described as having the most dysfunctional legislature in the country. Gerrymandering that keeps the houses continually in the hands...
Injury to Injury
I don’t have any links to post on this, because I haven’t found it being covered anywhere, but in some conversations I’ve been having...
The Limits of Federalism
Responding to Andrew Macurak’s post on Pennsylvania interfering with its counties’ right to pass strict smoking bans and but allowing them opt out of...
Massachusetts is watching
Given the interesting but not widely known fact that foreclosure rates in the current crisis are lower in neighborhoods with a larger percentage of...
Free Transit?
New York City’s attempt to pass a congestion pricing plan like those that have been so successful in London and elsewhere was killed a...
Diverse Workplaces Work, Why Not Neighborhoods?
To continue the collective efficacy discussion, I want to throw the work of Professor Scott Page, author of The Difference: How the Power of...
Collective Efficacy: Who’s in the Collective?
Kari Lydersen’s post on the challenges of mixed-income communities yesterday reminded me of some things I’d wanted to bring up...
Divided We Subsidize Agribusiness
Does anyone else feel a little like we’ve entered the Twilight Zone? Today we have Bush — yes, that same Bush whose gall in...
Preparing for Peak Oil: Nutty Survivalism or Crucial Equity Issue?
Should community developers and other low-income community advocates be concerned about preparing for life after peak oil? We all know that the greed of...
Will Columbia Take Manhattanville?
Balancing an Ivy League university's expansion plan with a Harlem neighborhood's needs is a tricky business, especially when eminent domain is in the mix.
Small is Beautiful – Again
The shrinking cities movement imagines revitalization without growth - and housing advocates take a hard look at what that means for the poor.
A Community Whodunit
The Long Stair: An Albany Mystery, by Kirby White. Fox Creek Press, 2005, 220 pp. $15 (paperback). The Long Stair is available for $15...
Picking Up The Pieces
Hurricane Katrina forced organizing groups to stretch to their limits, but it also showcased their strengths as never before
Creating Community Realty
When Sandy LeVan met with her broker at the beginning of her house search two years ago, he asked her two questions: Where she...