David Listokin

Smart growth: More than a ghost of urban policy past, less than a bold new horizon

Abstract Proponents of smart growth tout its more compact, less automobile‐dependent development as a superior alternative to the prevailing pattern of sprawl. Admittedly, smart growth is characterized by the ghost of urban policy past, ranging from inner‐area revitalization to growth management. Yet smart growth incorporates leading‐edge, contemporary components (e.g., encouraging multimodal transportation, strategically locating public employment), and its timing is propitious—as aging baby boomers, rising immigration, and other forces support core‐area revitalization and other smart growth themes. The future of smart growth is promising, but its success is far from assured. Multiple factors, such as the lack of adoption across governments, market support for sprawl, the automobiles clinging dominance, and a paucity of techniques, could impair broad implementation. However, smart growth is sensible, broadly recognized, and fortuitously timed, and its proponents have learned from the miscues of its historical antecedents.

The contributions of historic preservation to housing and economic development

Abstract Historic preservation contributes greatly to housing and economic development. Historic preservation has produced almost 250,000 housing units through use of the federal historic rehabilitation tax credit. Additionally, heritage tourism is a multibillion‐dollar industry, and preservation projects help further community revitalization. Historic preservation also has a downside. Preservations growing popularity may dilute its imperative and market prowess, and some argue it is used to thwart new development. Preservation requirements may impede affordable housing production and displace area residents. These undesirable consequences are not givens, however. Preservationists are working to become more flexible, and we suggest ways to practice historic preservation while mitigating some of its negative consequences—for example, tax credit changes, more flexible building codes, and a “tiered” system of designating historic properties at varying levels of significance.

Making New Mortgage Markets: Case Studies of Institutions, Home Buyers, and Communities

Abstract Americas housing and mortgage markets are undergoing a dramatic transformation, as urban reinvestment and attempts to tap underserved markets of new homeowners alter historical processes of redlining and discrimination. This article synthesizes findings from case studies of private lenders, lender consortia, and nonprofit community organizations that are active in underserved markets and analyzes the strategies these organizations use to attract and qualify mortgage applicants and retain new homeowners. The case studies reveal a diverse array of strategies designed to address market imperfections related to information, discrimination, and household financial characteristics. Although these strategies expand homeownership opportunities, challenges remain. They reflect inherent tensions between the industry trend toward standardized, efficient business practices and the customized, often expensive programs needed to address the multiple obstacles to homeownership and community development faced by underserved households and communities. They also reflect the historically unequal distribution of risks and rewards in Americas central socioeconomic institution—homeownership.

The potential and limitations of mortgage innovation in fostering homeownership in the United States

Abstract This article presents an empirical analysis of mortgage innovation as a vehicle to enable renters, especially those from traditionally underserved populations, to realize home‐ownership. It examines the financial and underwriting criteria of a typology of mortgage products, from those adhering to historical standards to some of todays most liberal loans, and develops synthetic models to account for all direct purchase costs. These models are calibrated using 1995 data on renter demographic and financial characteristics from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Compared with historical mortgages, todays more innovative loans increase the number of renters who could hypothetically qualify for homeownership by at least a million and expand potential home‐buying capacity by

Federal housing policy and preservation: Historical evolution, patterns, and implications

300 billion. Certain policies could greatly expand the potential gains. Nevertheless, even the most aggressive innovations can play only a limited role in efforts to deliver the material benefits of homeownership to underserved populations.

Influences on United States housing policy

Abstract This paper considers the evolution and patterns of federal low‐income1 housing policies and programs over roughly the past half‐century. It begins with an overview of the multifaceted involvement of the federal government in housing — only one aspect of which is its intervention in the low‐income sector. This is followed by an overview of federal low‐income housing policy from the New Deal to today. The underlying assumptions and approaches of these policies are then considered with respect to such considerations as the governments presence and role, its targeting of assistance, and the selection of subsidy levels and vehicles. The paper concludes with a brief review of the implications of the historical record for future policy.

Asian Americans for equality: A case study of strategies for expanding immigrant homeownership

Abstract This article traces the forces that will affect housing policy in the United States for the rest of the 1990s. This broad and varied set of forces includes demographic and economic factors, government, and shifting societal values. The forces affecting housing for the coming years are both encouraging and disturbing. The housing future differs markedly for people of different social status and color. An improving economy augurs well for housing, but high minority unemployment, an inadequate social safety net, and other problems suggest otherwise. Despite generally rising incomes, tremendous inequalities remain. Blatant housing discrimination is receding, but significant housing separation by race continues. While America will continue to produce high‐amenity housing, affordability is a problem, especially among ethnic and minority populations. The federal government in the future will likely not increase its support for assisted housing, but there is growing involvement of state and local governm...

Energy-efficient reuse of existing commercial buildings

Abstract At a time when the overall homeownership rate in the United States is at a historic high, many groups still face severe hurdles in realizing the American dream. The public, private, and nonprofit sectors are working to address these barriers, and this article examines one nonprofits activities. Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE) is a civil rights and housing organization providing homeownership and other services to Asian Americans, a group that often faces language, cultural, credit, and financial difficulties in achieving homeownership. AAFE addresses these challenges by providing aggressive outreach through housing fairs and neighborhood publications; it offers homeownership education and counseling in a variety of languages and settings, secures multiple housing subsidies and develops affordable housing, and educates lenders on the employment and credit practices of the Asian community. AAFE thus helps tailor the complex web of activities required to expand homeownership to traditionally underserved—especially immigrant—populations.

Future land use : energy, environmental, and legal constraints

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Increased demand for urban living, financial incentives for redevelopment, and conducive planning regulations are leading to significant commercial building reuse. This trend represents an opportunity to upgrade the energy performance of the existing building stock in older, more walkable downtowns and to achieve preservation goals. Some advocates of building reuse resist imposing the cost of energy improvements on associated projects, while many energy efficiency advocates do not distinguish how the opportunities and constraints differ between new and existing buildings. Building code officials experience this tension when reviewing improvements to existing buildings, and many find that sections of the widely adopted International Energy Conservation Code are pragmatically unenforceable. In this study we examine the existing-building energy challenge using a mixed-methods approach within one region as well as a national-level analysis of governmental data. We characterize promising regulatory strategies including exempting historic buildings (which is the status quo), exempting smaller buildings and less energy-intensive occupancies and systems, and creating simple lookup tables that provide succinct guidance to redevelopers and code officials. Takeaway for practice: Code officials enforce longstanding life-safety codes more assiduously than they do the newer energy codes, and these codes need revisions to make them more cost effective and enforceable. A better understanding and implementation of building energy codes can have positive implications for both energy performance and downtown revitalization. Success depends on better managing interdependencies among the national policy objective of energy efficiency, the ubiquitous local planning objective of downtown revitalization, and the bureaucratic challenges of regulating construction in existing buildings. Planners should bring code officials into adaptive reuse projects early.

New Tools for Economic Development: The Enterprise Zone, Development Bank, and RFC.

The discussion is presented under the following subject categories: land use and growth, growth versus the environment, energy constraints and growth, and the shape of metropolitan areas in the year 2000. Four of the twenty-three papers were abstracted and indexed individually for EDB/EPA. (JGB)