There is broad-based agreement on the need to expand the supply of affordable and accessible housing. There is no consensus, however, on how to achieve this overarching goal.

 

A myth is perpetuated in some circles that any attempt to intelligently coordinate the location, timing and design of development (aka, growth management or smart growth) limits the supply of affordable and accessible housing. The primary advocates of this position are members of the individual self-interest/property-value lobby (aka, the property rights lobby). Advocates are supported and bank-rolled by those who profit from the development of badly located land for cheaper, inaccessible housing. (The relationship between “cheap housing” and “affordable and accessible housing” is explored in "Affordable, But No Bargain," February 17, 2003).

 

Addressing these topics in May, The Brookings Institution convened a conference on the “Relations Between Affordable Housing and Growth Management.” The think tank convened a distinguished group of scholars and practitioners from across the country to review and discuss five research papers.

 

Collectively, the papers document that “growth management” and “smart growth” are not causing housing to be more and more unaffordable and inaccessible. On the other hand, these studies also show that “growth management” and “smart growth” are not the “answer” to creating affordable and accessible housing either.

 

Taken together, the studies do not provide the basis for significant change in “business as usual,” which is the real culprit behind unaffordable and inaccessible housing for those who near the bottom of the economic food chain. 

 

There is nothing in the Brookings conference papers that will:  

• Inspire Congress or the federal administration to modify the current policies that make affordable and accessible housing unavailable to those who need it most.

• Encourage state governors and legislatures to use powers reserved under the U.S. constitution to create functional human settlement patterns or sub-state governance structures that reflect regional economic, social and physical reality.

Only under these circumstances will affordable and accessible housing be available to all citizens. 

The Brookings-sponsored research also will not impact other important actors in the current housing supply process. For example, this research and these resulting documents will not:  

• Provide an incentive to change the municipal land-use control practices that exacerbate the problem of unaffordable and inaccessible housing.

• Quell opposition to any policy or action that purports to improve housing options for those at the bottom of the economic food chain.

• Cause Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac to stop spending millions to advertise the benefits of citizens buying housing units in locations and in spacial configurations that cumulatively cannot be made affordable, accessible or sustainable.

• Challenge the myth that trickle-down housing is a better way to  provide safe, affordable and accessible housing than is created by socialized housing.

On both sides of the Clear Edge between Urbanside and Countryside, there is a desperate need for a fundamentally new approach to provide affordable and accessible housing. As currently practiced, “growth management” and “smart growth” do not accomplish this objective. In fact, none of the options on the street adequate to the task.

So, what can be done?  

 

Brookings Senior Fellow Anthony Downs convened the session. Downs has, on other occasions, pointed out that in a democracy it is hard to change a set of policies that benefit individuals at the top of the food chain when the negative impact is primarily felt by those at the bottom. It is, however, imperative in the case of housing that this difficult task be accomplished.

 

The housing delivery system in the United States of America -- and human settlement patterns that result from the same forces that are shaping the housing delivery system -- are slouching toward Gomorrah. The process that provides "the built environment" is a near-perfect demonstration of the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics.

The pattern of human settlements is moving toward entropy. A primary casualty, along with mobility and access, is affordable and accessible housing.

In the keynote address at the May conference, Downs suggested that neither smart growth nor affordable housing will get far in the face of municipal (aka, “local”) scale NIMBY attacks.

Raising the income of those in need of affordable housing, lowering the cost of new housing or lowering the value of existing housing all raise red flags for "sub"urban homeowners and the "sub"urban municipal governments that they control.