Latest Cityscape Released

Cityscape Examines the Evolution of U.S. Affordable Housing Design and Construction

The latest issue of Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research features a research symposium about the history and evolution of affordable housing design and construction. Guest Editor Carlos E. Martin of the Urban Institute introduces the symposium, which draws on a variety of perspectives to advance an understanding of the relationship between low-income housing design, construction technologies, and the social and economic milieu.

Vinit Mukhija uses an analysis of Mutual Self Help Housing, a mortgage subsidy program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to demonstrate that a shift away from modest design models amenable to incremental development, or gradual expansion and improvement of a home as more money and other resources become available and occupant needs change, has increased initial housing costs and decreased accessibility for low-income households. The author suggests that an over-emphasis on financial strategies to increase the prospect of homeownership in the United States may be crowding out opportunities for low-incomes families to own homes through incremental development.

Lawrence J. Vale, Shomon Shamsuddin, Annemarie Gray, and Kassie Bertumen examine the role of affordable housing in building resilient communities and argue that, in addition to physical structure, the design processes should consider the social, economic, environmental, and political relationships between affordable housing and cities. The authors suggest that to be an effective tool for supporting resilient communities, affordable housing should support residents socially and culturally, offer protection from environmental threats, provide security for residents, and foster a sense of community and autonomy. Examples from San Francisco, California; Iquique, Chile; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Banda Aceh, Indonesia offer insight into strategies for supporting the resilience of a city through affordable housing, both in communities with conventional affordable housing issues and those that have experienced disaster.

Mary C. Comerio compares disaster recovery approaches used in examples drawn from Chile, China, Haiti, Italy, Japan, and New Zealand. Although local perspectives and conditions vary, Comerio finds recovery is linked to community resilience and renewal initiatives that address social, economic, institutional, ecological, and community issues, in addition to restoring housing and infrastructure. The particular balance between the role of government and citizen participation in planning and decisionmaking about the future appeared to be important in adapting to and moving past a disaster.

Gwendolyn Wright broadly reflects on housing design and policy's role in making housing affordable, historically and at the present time. Design is particularly noted as a strategy for meeting community and individual housing needs and preferences. The author shares examples of best practices and lessons learned to suggest that affordable housing design can be critical to integrating housing with community development.

Deane Evans highlights the history and new features of the Affordable Housing Design Advisor, an online tool for housing practitioners, created by HUD in 2001 and relaunched in 2013 to codify quality design and its feasibility in the affordable housing industry. The redesigned tool prominently features a wide array of resources for housing stakeholders, while its capacities as a funding review tool, a resource for housing renovation and rehabilitation as well as new construction, and as an information exchange on technologies and methods are being developed.

Katie Swenson explores the evolution of affordable housing design with the changing needs of communities and its influence on approaches taken by designers, developers, and policymakers to address community and market demands, with particular focus on the role of the designer. Examining projects in which the Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship program has embedded new architects with community developers over the past 15 years, the author finds that a collaborative, place-based design process – one in which designers are fully immersed in the community – often results in good design.

In Cityscape's Point of Contention section Alexander Polikoff, John Goering, Edgar O. Olsen, and Edward G. Goetz offer expert viewpoints on the question of "Should the deconcentration of poverty become one of the core objectives of federal housing policy?"

This issue also features short analytical works: Data Shop: The Smart Location Database: A Nationwide Data Resource Characterizing the Built Environment and Destination Accessibility at the Neighborhood Scale by Kevin Ramsey and Alexander Bell; Graphic Detail: Comparative Micromaps and Changing State Homeownership Rates by Brent D. Mast, and Artists and Bankers and Hipsters, Oh My! Mapping Tweets in the New York Metropolitan Region by Ate Poorthuis and Matthew Zook; Industrial Revolution: Key Behaviors of Residents Who Need Energy Education by Isabelina Nahmens and Alireza Joukar; Foreign Exchange: Chile's New Rental Housing Subsidy and Its Relevance to U.S. Housing Choice Voucher Program Reform by Lauren M. Ross and Danilo Pelletiere; SpAM: Who Can Access Transit? Reviewing Methods for Determining Population Access to Bus Transit by Steven Biba, Kevin M. Curtin, and Germana Manca, and The Use of Spatially Lagged Explanatory Variables for Modeling Neighborhood Amenities and Mobility in Older Adults by Tony H. Grubesic and Andrea L. Rosso.