Affordable Housing Institute : US

Something potentially remarkable is happening in Kenya right now, and it’s happening because of slums, or more precisely Kibera, Africa’s largest slum.  Kibera’s residents, long ignored in economic and policy terms, may just decide Kenya’s next president.  As reported last week in the Boston Globe:
 
In Kenya, presidential race could hinge on voters in slum
 
NAIROBI - […]

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1 and Part 2.]
 

In the first part of this post , I offered the globe-trotting policy maker —
 

I’ve got your policy palmed in my hand
 
— four authentic American wares sure to suit any housing ministry’s mantelpiece:
 

Mickey always wanted a piece
 
Three levels of government
Credit enhancement at the affordability margin
Public-private housing finance agencies
Inclusionary zoning
 
Yesterday, in […]

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]

See any cultural icons you’d like, honey?
 
For the global traveler taking advantage of the weak dollar to troll among the housing policy marketplaces of America, yesterday’s post listed four must-haves:
 
 
 
Beyond these staples, some discerning foreigners will seek the ‘might-fits’ —
 

Perhaps you would like a nice American export, my darling?
 
slightly more […]

If you had a nifty innovation that had turned 500,000 public housing renters into homeowners, wouldn’t you trumpet it? 
 

 
Apparently, not if you were Scottish, or at least that’s what one would infer from a proposed policy change in the UK affordable housing ecosystem that is apparently emanating from Edinburgh, as reported in This is […]

 
[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]
 
Yesterday’s post explored cryptobiotica, the small small-moving life to be found in the soils of America’s southwestern deserts, which I likened to slums in its ability to form a spontaneous community and to stabilize neighborhoods.  As the U. S. Geological Survey phrased the ecology:
 
Cryptobiotic Soils: Holding the Place in Place
 
Cryptobiotic soil […]