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December 4, 2008 10:19:40 AM CST


public housing

public housing news stories

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OPINION

Mortgage Crisis? Blame George Bailey

It's A Wonderful Life hero helped poor buy unaffordable homes

(Newser) - The housing bubble that triggered the current economic crisis began with a post-Depression attitude toward owning a home presented in the classic Christmas flick It’s a Wonderful Life , writes Ross Douthat in the Washington Post . Hero banker George Bailey’s chief goal was to loan the poor enough money to buy homes they couldn’t really afford because owning a house would “make them better citizens.” More »

More about:  Financial Crisis Great Depression housing bubble homeownership suburbs FDR suburban sprawl public housing McMansion

analysis

 Why Is Memphis the New
 South Bronx? 

Demolition of low-income housing has only redistributed the problem

(Newser) - Despite a flattened national crime rate in large cities, Memphis was recently dubbed the nation's leader in violent crime, prompting Atlantic Monthly to ask: “Why has Elvis’s hometown turned into America’s new South Bronx?" Local experts offer an unsettling answer: demolition of low-income housing projects isn’t eradicating crime and poverty by giving residents a fresh start—it’s just decentralizing and relocating the problem.   More »

More about:  poverty gang violence Memphis urban poverty public housing

UPDATED

Big Easy Protest Turns Rough

New Orleans OK's demolition of housing despite opposition

(Newser) - Police used pepper spray and stun guns on protesters in New Orleans attempting to push their way into a City Council meeting over the impending demolition of 4,500 public housing units damaged by Katrina. Local activists oppose HUD's push to raze the houses to make room for mixed-income neighborhoods. "Is this what democracy looks like?" one protester asked the AP. More »

More about:  Hurricane Katrina New Orleans housing Housing and Urban Development public housing

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