The ideas behind this—land trusts that keep affordable housing affordable in perpetuity are important and have been shown to work. The issue is always funding them initially. But if cities support it as a whole then it can be done. You will have powerful interests not in favor, such as the real estate industry, so it is tough. Most people think of housing as a commodity, somewhere to build wealth, which makes it harder to support sustainable/affordable housing. But unless we want to turn into wealthy s***holes with lots of boarded up places too expensive for folks to rent or start businesses then you MUST have a variety of housing for people along all incomes. It’s what makes providence great. I’m the past we have had housing that artists, teachers, new business owners can afford. If you stick to market based models of housing you loose this, and you loose the backbone of your community. No one wants a bunch of 20 y/o working for tech as the only residents of a city.
AwareFaithlessness68 t1_isa5l0b wrote
Reply to Providence announces new program to acquire vacant land to build affordable housing by rhodyjourno
The ideas behind this—land trusts that keep affordable housing affordable in perpetuity are important and have been shown to work. The issue is always funding them initially. But if cities support it as a whole then it can be done. You will have powerful interests not in favor, such as the real estate industry, so it is tough. Most people think of housing as a commodity, somewhere to build wealth, which makes it harder to support sustainable/affordable housing. But unless we want to turn into wealthy s***holes with lots of boarded up places too expensive for folks to rent or start businesses then you MUST have a variety of housing for people along all incomes. It’s what makes providence great. I’m the past we have had housing that artists, teachers, new business owners can afford. If you stick to market based models of housing you loose this, and you loose the backbone of your community. No one wants a bunch of 20 y/o working for tech as the only residents of a city.