Category: Uncategorized

Detroit is ranked #1 in the Forbes Misery Measure according to the article “America’s Most Miserable Cities.”

Forbes, which created a Misery Measure for the study, included factors like unemployment, taxes, weather, pollution sites, commute times, and crime to rank America’s most miserable places. New York City was surprisingly fourth on the list, thanks to amazingly high taxes and housing costs, and Philadelphia ranked fifth.

According to the article:

The biggest surprise on our list is Charlotte, N.C., which is ranked ninth. Charlotte has undergone tremendous economic growth the past decade, while the population has soared 32%. But the current picture isn’t as bright. Employment growth has not kept up with population growth, meaning unemployment rates are up more than 50% compared with 10 years ago. Charlotte scored in the bottom half of all six categories we examined. It scored the worst on violent crime, ranking 140th.

Source: America’s Most Miserable Cities

The New York Times has reported on the near completion of Crossroads, a 125 resident homeless shelter in East Oakland, California that, “may be the only ‘green’ homeless shelter built from the ground up.”

According to the article “A Shelter Is Built Green, to Heal Inside and Out” it has, “a solar-paneled roof, hydronic heating, artful but practical ceiling fans, nontoxic paint, windows that can be opened to let in fresh air, and desks and bureaus made from pressed wheat.”

This $11 million building shows it’s possible to construct low-income housing that surpasses the private market in innovation and design.

Source: A Shelter Is Built Green, to Heal Inside and Out

Homeowners in the US regularly protest plans for building housing for the homeless in their neighborhoods, fearing the decline of nearby property values. Headlines such as “Despite Opposition, Housing Project Advances,” and “Housing for Homeless Draws Resistance” regularly appear on the KnowledgePlex (a group that compiles urban news from around the US) website showing this as a common belief.

Tim Bruer, member of Madison’s Community Development Authority, says that “housing for the homeless would further concentrate poverty on [Madison’s] South Side and obstruct efforts to bring economic development to the area.”

But, from what we see happening in Philadelphia, Bruer’s wrong.

Sister Mary Scullion, of Philadelphia’s Project HOME, says, “I think real estate values actually increase when we put a facility for the homeless in a neighborhood,” in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer.

And according to a recent study, she’s right. “Where homes in Philadelphia have risen in value an average of 5 percent since 1993, they have risen 6.8 percent within a quarter mile of Project HOME sites.”

The property values surrounding Project HOME’s developments increased value faster than the rest of Philadelphia because they chose to locate in economically distressed neighborhoods and improved the buildings that would have normally sat vacant.

According to Dennis Culhane, a social policy professor at Penn who studies the effect of public housing on Philadelphia real estate prices, “Even if these sites alone are not driving the better-than-average property-value increases, they certainly are not dragging these property values down.” So housing for the homeless doesn’t “obstruct efforts to bring economic development,” it actually facilitates economic development.

Another reason might be better design. New developments blow away the cinder block, utilitarian buildings of the past. Design and environmental efficiency are now a priority, and might be even out pacing the private market in green design innovation. According to the Chicago Tribune, “A growing number of architects, from established stars to ambitious up-and-comers, are looking to such projects as an opportunity to do innovative work.”

Don’t believe me. Check out what’s going on in Seattle, or Santa Monica, or read what even right-wing Forbes has to say in “Low-Income-Housing Builders See Green.”