Bi-Weekly Discussion - The Urban Housing Crises
Details
We're currently hosting our discussions at Café Walnut, near the corner of 7th & Walnut in Olde City, just across the street from Washington Square Park. The cafe's entrance is below street level down some stairs, which can be confusing if it's your first time. Our group meets in the large room upstairs.
Since we're using the cafe's space, they ask that each person attending the meetup at least purchase a drink or snack. Please don't bring any food or drinks from outside.
The cafe is fairly easy to get to if you're using public transit. With SEPTA, take the Market-Frankford Line & get off at the 5th Street Station (corner of 5th & Market), and walk 2 blocks south on 5th and then turn right on Walnut Street and walk 2 blocks west. With PATCO, just get off at the 9th-10th & Locust stop and walk 3 blocks east & 1 block north. For those who are driving, I'd suggest parking in the Washington Square parking deck at 249 S 6th Street which is just a half block away.
THE URBAN HOUSING CRISES:
HOW SHOULD WE ALLEVIATE HOMELESSNESS, LOW-INCOME SEGREGATION/ DISPLACEMENT & THE MIDDLE-INCOME AFFORDABLE HOUSING CRISIS WITHOUT REINFLATING THE BUBBLE?
INTRODUCTION:
In our last meetup, entitled "Environmental Justice & Healthier Cities", we discussed how local policies affect air & water quality, traffic safety, and food security, and how environmental concerns have to be balanced against economic constraints & personal freedoms. To review what we covered, check out the discussion outline:
https://www.meetup.com/Philadelphia-Political-Agnostics/events/txqhxqyzkblc/
In this meetup, we'll discuss the issue of urban housing from the perspective of ethics, economics, sociology & political science. As the subtitle above suggests, we'll look at 4 interlocking issues that have all been characterized as a "housing crisis" in many of America's major cities - i.e. homelessness, the residential segregation & displacement of the urban working class through "gentrification", a shortage of affordable housing for the urban middle class - especially young professionals, and the risk of another housing bubble & market crash if we get housing policy wrong again.
URBANIST SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT:
For those new to urban planning debates, there's several schools of thought that only roughly align with the left-right political spectrum. The first 2 schools of thought are mostly defunct at this point, but their influence continues:
- High Modernist Urbanism: An outgrowth of early 20th-century urbanist movements like "City Beautiful" and the "Garden City", High Modernism was a post-WWII school of top-down urban planning that rezoned cities into distinct residential, commercial & industrial districts, built big urban attractions like sports stadiums, theaters & museums, accommodated suburban middle-class commuters with major highways into downtown, and "helped" the poor by demolishing slums & segregating them in high-density housing projects.
- New Urbanism: This was a reaction against High Modernist urbanism that began in the 1960s-70s and attained prominence by the '80s-90s which focused on giving citizens greater input into urban planning and enabling walkable, moderate-density, mixed-use neighborhoods with parks & amenities to build social capital, and favored mass transit instead of car commuting. While this was a more decentralized & democratic approach, it also enabled NIMBY-ism in the form of exclusionary zoning policies & historic preservation that limited the housing supply, driving up its cost & maintaining de facto segregation.
- Sustainable Urbanism & Smart Growth: This is an early 21st century combination of New Urbanism's focus on walkability & mass transit with High Modernism's top-down planning to address environmental concerns. It favors high-density, mixed-used neighborhoods with green spaces, and it aims to use 100% renewable energy. As a left-wing movement, it's suspicious of the free market and tends to have strict zoning, relies on rent control & gov't subsidies to make housing affordable, and favors publicly-owned mass transit, utilities, schools, hospitals, community centers, etc.
- Antiplanning & New Suburbanism: This is a conservative & libertarian reaction against Smart Growth initiatives which sees car-centric suburbs as superior to high-density cities. It aims to makes suburbs more attractive by incorporating some New Urbanist ideas, like walkable "town centers" with bars & shops and revamped office parks with gyms & other amenities.
- Lean/Market Urbanism & YIMBY: This is a new centrist movement of moderate libertarians & center-left liberals that sees the lack of affordable housing due to NIMBYism as a big problem. They see New Suburbanism as unsustainable & favor high-density cities with mass transit like Sustainable Urbanism, but they also think free market principles need to be applied to make the city gov't more efficient & the local economy more dynamic (e.g. privatized mass transit & utilities, school vouchers & charter schools, looser business licensing & zoning to allow innovation like Uber, Zipcar, AirBnB, dockless bikes, food trucks, pop-up events, etc.).