icon Blueprint for March

American Urban Housing Tour

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3 min read

All aboard! Welcome, and we’re glad you’re joining us today for this grand tour of affordable housing situations and civic innovations in cities all across our country. We’re going to cover a lot of ground, but at the end, we hope you’ll have a clearer sense of some current conditions and trends, as well as innovative local programs from which your business may be able to benefit. So fasten your seat belts.

Our guide today is Scott Beyer, a talented and perspicacious young reporter we share with Forbes Magazine and the Market Urbanism website he created (and which you may want to visit). In the past 30 months, Scott has lived in 30 American cities and has reported about their housing to us in his Housing USA column. But now that the journey is completed, we asked Scott to provide us an overview of the situation for affordable housing around the country. (Urban Odyssey) Scott and I may not always agree on approaches to community needs and solutions, but given his passion for urbania and his skill at word painting cities, I am always eager to read and to share his astute observations and opinions.

Following Scott’s overview, we will be making stops in four cities and one overall state where informative, innovative initiatives are playing out – and to a variety of receptions. (This is, after all, America 2019, is it not?)

Our first stop is Salt Lake City, where mayor Jackie Biskupski assembled a diverse civic task force to create a strategy for encouraging affordable housing that she now holds up as a model for other municipalities. We are honored that the mayor was willing to discuss the effort with our Talking Heads interviewer, Darryl Hicks.

Our next stop is Minneapolis, where an unusually “woke” Minnesotan majority voted to alter zoning in order to encourage more affordable housing construction last November. (p. 20) As our local guide, staff writer Mark Olshaker discovers that the comprehensive Minneapolis 2040 plan, despite the widespread participation in its conception, has not met with universal support.

Staff writer Mark Fogarty guides us through two towns this month, nearly 2,000 miles apart, but both of which have benefitted from bold and inspiring collaboration among local supporters: Portland, OR, where state housing authorities, city officials and private developers are teaming to encourage housing where there is transit. And Detroit, MI, where a similar array of concerned partners is collaborating to make sure currently affordable housing is preserved.

We then make a stop in Washington, DC, which has been Mark Olshaker’s home his entire life. As a journalist, sports fan and culture vulture, he has explored and enjoyed much of his hometown. So we thought he was a good guide to how the Opportunity Zone program might have an impact on a single city, serving as an example for other communities. (Land of Oz)

And while we’re on our American housing tour, we thought it of value (as it always is) to check in with David A. Smith, who focuses this month on the state of California, which is fraught with the ambiguity in its urban centers of the least affordability of housing and most progressive approaches to policy. What kind of leadership (bravery? confidence?) will it take to effectively meld the two for the common good? Our guru is in on that one.

So relax in your seat, turn the page and embark with us on this journey through cities, states, policies, programs, conversations, innovations and, hopefully, inspirations for affordable housing. Bon voyage.

Marty Bell, Editor