Month in Review December 2006
[Previous months in review available here: Nov, Oct, Sep, Aug, Jul, Jun, May, Apr, Mar, Feb, Jan-06, Dec-05.]
The month that holds Christmas saw a visit from Ebenezer Scrooge, social theorist:
Who, me, a social theorist?
What, the Ghosts might have asked, is the purpose of money?
· In personal terms, it is a device to buy happiness — our own, or others’.
· In economic terms, it is a tremendous invention, for it enables commence, enhances trade, and provides a quick and portable means of securing products and services of others.
· In societal terms, it is how we make it possible to care for the elderly, the infirm, the orphans, the troubled. It lashes self-interest to social purpose and makes them both equal, both valuable.
· In housing policy terms, it is how we give the world’s elderly, and the world’s children, better lives and hope of better lives.
What drives me about this maddening, fascinating, frustrating, complex business, what gets me to keep trying to improve the ecosystem, is that I cannot walk into a home, whether a hovel in Kibera or a small apartment amid a concrete public-housing high-rise, without immediately realizing that a person lives there, a person who has made some effort to make the place both personal and comfortable.
In matters more cheerful, Sherlock Holmes visited his banker brother Mycroft in an important primer post, the two-part Adventure of the money store: Part 1, the money, and Part 2, the markets.
“The center of the world,” Mycroft said as if to himself. “Why, when a man is tired of the financial markets he is tired of life, for it is here that man demonstrates what he values, in all its diversity.”
“Sir, the financial pages are endlessly fascinating.”
“Money,” said Mycroft lovingly. “The measure of men. Ever since its invention, all that we have, someone trades for money, somewhere within a mile of this spot — within my very line of sight. Barter replaced by commerce, bluster by calculation. Future earnings swapped for present cash. Everything that people value comes here, comes together in this vast edifice, this money store we call the City of London and the Americans call Wall Street. And a very good thing too,” he murmured. “A very good thing it is indeed.”
By contrast with Mycroft’s hive of activity, public housing suffers from a lack of capital accessibility, as I detailed in Public housing’s dependency trap: Part 1, the schema, and Part 2, the lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; all this prefigured an article I wrote for NAHRO’s Journal of Housing and Community Development about cutting Public housing’s Gordian’s knot:
When a whole delivery system creaks and collapses, as I believe is occurring here, the only solution is root-and-branch change. Mere tweaking will not suffice. The systemic elements are interdependent: removing or dramatically modifying one part compels compensatory changes in other parts.
Confronted with the endless Gordian knot, Alexander slashed through it with a stroke of his sword.
“That’s for your operating subsidy!”
Problems are insoluble only if you accept unstated conditions. For too long, public housing has meekly accepted an intellectual servitude whereby housing authorities are presumed unable to manage their own financial and operational decisions — unworthy, in HUD’s eyes, to be treated like owners.
It’s time for housing authorities to think like owners, to act like owners, and to be given the powers and responsibilities of owners.
In terms of rear-view-mirror issues, we bade goodbye to the
The 109th is somewhere back there
In that same post, I anticipated GSE reform being enacted in 2007, reform made even more relevant by the most recent rounds of lawsuits, this one by Fannie Mae against its former auditor in Fannie Mae: finger, point:
O God, “give me chastity, but not yet,” Saint Augustine is reputed to have prayed, and in the latest (albeit anticipated) development in the ongoing Fannie Mae saga, the company has sued its former auditors for, in effect, not stopping its own misbehavior.
“Please stop me from smoothing earnings … but not yet!”
Turning from the news, I spent some time on two themes that continue to preoccupy this blog, first on Benefits of home ownership: unpacking the bundle, and secondly distilling the essence of my Pretoria (South Africa) talk on Tax credits’ essential issues: Part 1, unique features, Part 2, design variables, and Part 3, preconditions.
The month also saw two surprising announcements, first that Sam Zell is heading out of the real estate investment trust business, in Press de-REIT, and second that Boston Mayor Tom Menino wants to move City Hall, about which my opinion comes in four words: Great idea! Never happen, Part 1 and Great idea! Never happen, Part 2. Let’s hope I’m half wrong.
The mayor’s proposal is interesting in its own right, and worthy of deeper study for the principles it reveals about:
1. The evolution of cities.
2. The consequences of bad construction design.
3. Government’s role in fostering urban redevelopment
4. The renewal of very old affordable housing properties via subsidy portage.
Shall we?
May I have the honor of this blog post?
I looked at New York City’s aggressive efforts to force behavioral changes in its homeless in The visible helping hand, explored (albeit with some skeptical arithmetic) a promising innovation in Community Land Trusts and long term affordable housing, and highlighted a very important trend as demonstrated by the Center for Housing Policy in Driving to the poor house?
Connect those four dots and it leads to the inescapable conclusion that, because affordable housing is essential to modern cities, housing and transportation policy deserve greater government assistance. They are likely to be the constraining factors in
Cuts down your mobility, doesn’t it?
As we counted down to New Year’s Day, I profiled a town that’s really dead at night, in Deadsville, man, a fitting bridge to return to our friend Ebenezer:
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny
God bless us, every one.
