Why I founded AHI: Part 1

August 17, 2005 | Uncategorized

Nancy and I were setting about on our annual three-week vacation, this time solely Scotland.  We’d flown the red-eye, then changed planes up to Edinburgh.  Arriving in mid-early afternoon on a blustery raw cold day in early November 1997, with the sun rapidly sinking toward a leaded gray horizon, we decided on exercise, a hike up Arthur’s Seat, an 800-foot high outcrop of granite, furze, heather and moss just south of the city center.

 

Arthurs_seat_path

 

Up we climbed, spiraling around the wild rocky trails, finally leaning ourselves on the summit coign. 

 

Arthurs_seat_walkers

It was colder than this ….

 

Shivering in our windbreakers as the wind buffeted us into each other’s leeward, we paused and looked around us.  To the north was the Firth of Forth, northwest was Princes Street and the brooding silhouette of Edinburgh Castle.

 

Edinburgh_castle_misty

 

I got into this business by accident and, as a graduate of the Yogi Berra School of Public Policy Analysis (”you can observe a lot just by watching“), I have learned what I know about affordable housing through experience, endless questioning, a fascination with affordable housing’s fragmentary and poorly documented history, and an inexhaustible curiosity.  My gaze wandered away from the Castle to the southeast, where amidst a gorse of brick and slate cottages stood four massive high-rises all in a row, like petrified soldiers.

 

Hi_rise_council_glasgow

These are from Glasgow; Edinburgh’s looked worse

 

That has to be public housing, I thought.  Now why would anyone build something that ugly and that isolated?

 

[Continued in Part 2 … ]

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