Affordable Housing Institute : US

[Continued from Part 1.]
 

 
In Part 1, I opened with the economics of water, using as its inspiration Duke law professor Jim Salzman’s article Thirst: A Short History of Drinking Water, and looking for principles applicable to 21st century urbanization in the world’s rapidly expanding cities and the spontaneous communities that represent their slums.  Because housing is what makes […]

As you know, with my work for Slum Dwellers International, and more broadly on affordable housing in the global south, I’ve been progressively more interested in the finance of basic urban infrastructure, particularly water and sanitation, because if housing is what makes cities, water and sanitation is what makes housing habitable, and hence what controls […]

[Continued from previous Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 ]

 
Now that we’ve devoted about 3,500 words to expositing Joseph R. Mason’s new article, Mortgage Loan Modification: Promises and Pitfalls, we can finally evaluate his proposed solution.
 

It’s easy to untangle this mess
 
First, a teaser:
 
Like securitization, modification has evolved in a regulatory vacuum. 
 
How dare those markets […]

 
[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 […]

[Continued from Part 1]
 
Kelo came about as a result of a brilliantly orchestrated multi-year strategy by a small advocacy group, the Institute For Justice.  For fifteen years they’ve worked on takings matters, first in regulatory takings — First English, Nollan, Palazzolo, and Tahoe-Sierra – with efforts that have largely failed.
 
They’ve cherry-picked plaintiffs with great […]