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...
Policy Victory Means Millions for Lower 9th Ward
For the first time, federal disaster funds will be provided to those who spent thousands of dollars on temporary housing after their homes were destroyed. For many homeowners across Louisiana, this will be enough to return and rebuild. Nearly 700 families in the Lower 9th Ward may qualify.
Japan’s Unintentional Social Experiment
Having just come back from two weeks in Japan, my brain is still overflowing with sensations and images from that fascinating, exciting, and intermittently...
Let’s Agree to Agree on a Poverty Policy Overhaul
I want to thank Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube for their thoughtful response to my post critiquing their book,...
Flooded: How Natural Disasters Lead to Predatory Lending in the Rio Grande Valley
The devastation that communities in the Rio Grande Valley experience is twofold: the initial destruction of the floods and the cycle of debt and poverty as a result of predatory loans.
An Important Piece of the Puzzle: A Response to “Some of Us Shall Not...
In her recent Shelterforce online review of We Shall Not Be Moved, my book about post-Katrina recovery efforts in five New Orleans neighborhoods, Lydia Pelot-Hobbs...
A Partner, Not an Expert
Over the course of three decades in the development finance industry, I have learned that engaging and empowering those who have the greatest stake in their communities is the best way to achieve meaningful and lasting change.
This Is How We Should Measure Our Work (And Achieve Economic Justice)
This is Part 6 in a series about the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty. Click here for...
The Green New Deal
Majora Carter saw natural beauty and economic empowerment in her South Bronx neighborhood where others saw only a dumping ground. She's changing the urban landscape in a way that's been an eye-opener to people around the globe.
Does a Sustainable Community Need a Good Drinking Establishment?
My friend Eliot Allen first introduced me to the concept of neighborhood completeness: that the quality of a place is defined in part by...
Building Multiculturally
One culture’s idea of the ideal house is different from another. Luckily, floor plans are adaptable.
SoFi, Not So Good: Is This Virtual Redlining?
SoFi is practicing product segregation. It wants to serve affluent people with its best products and shunt low- and moderate-income borrowers into inferior products that do not meaningfully serve credit needs.
Are Big-Box Stores a Good Measure of Equity?
It’s been cause for celebration here in the D.C. region, and rightfully so, that suburban Prince George’s County, Maryland, has a new, high-end Wegmans...
Is it: “Faster, Stimulus! Spend! Spend!” or “Think Before You Buy”?
James Oberstar, the Democrat from Minnesota who chairs the House Transportation Committee, has been sending out cranky letters to governors around the country who...
…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...
Detours on the Road Home
Serious flaws in the Road Home program have kept many hard-working homeowners from coming back to the Lower 9th Ward. Let’s not repeat them after the next disaster.
Recovery from the Grassroots
An interesting new planning document by the Sandy Regional Assembly was just released by a cross-section of grassroots groups, most based in New York...
Bostic on Green Finance: Investing in Sustainable Outcomes
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has posted a brief, informative interview with Raphael Bostic, HUD Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research, on...
Sprawl’s share of US housing starts has declined dramatically, says EPA
A new report from the US Environmental Protection Agency documents a dramatic shift in the pattern of new development in the nation over the...
Trump’s Empty Shell of a Promise to Renters
Diane Yentel slams President Trump's latest executive order as "reckless and harmful."