Category: Workforce housing

When money moves in

8 July, 2008 (08:07) | Cities, Demographics, Inclusionary zoning, Local issues, US News, Workforce housing | No comments

Not only is the world urbanizing, so too is America, and as we do, The value of urban land will continue to rise, with consequences that are both logically predictable – Every silver lining has a cloud – and utterly astonishing to those experiencing them, as detailed in this article from The San Francisco Chronicle:
 
It’s […]

World’s first homeownership subsidy

27 February, 2008 (11:06) | History, Tenure, Theory, Workforce housing | No comments

The other day (while reading William Rosen’s intriguing history, Justinian’s Flea), I came across what I think is the world’s first homeownership subsidy, the panes aedium of Constantine I and his capital Constantinople:
A man and the city he envisioned: Constantine and Constantinople
 
Though only a few hundred of the city’s private residences could be called mansions, […]

Vicarage of the church of football

14 December, 2007 (09:49) | Innovations, Local issues, Markets, Workforce housing | No comments

That workforce housing is both a policy goal and a local political imperative is due to a simple inequality: 
Pay < Living Cost
 
Communities need some essential local professions that pay too little to enable the providers to live in the town they work.  Key to that, in turn, is a community’s definition of what constitutes […]