It’s possible to be deeply caring, as John Gilderbloom is in this book, about the poor, the distressed, the homeless of his “Invisible City.” But can one also be pragmatic, rigorous in analysis, and focused unflinchingly on demonstrated results?

It’s no easy stretch, but Gilderbloom comes close in this book. He dismisses ideological nostrums about housing, whether they come from the interventionist left or the do-nothing free-market right, and he faults self-interested analyses of the real estate industry. Decent and desirable housing, he suggests, should be an inalienable right for each human in the one life he or she has...

In The Sociological Imagination, C. W. Mills (1959) asserts that social scientists should document the problems of society, find the causes of these problems, and advocate for policy changes. Invisible City refers to the people in our society whom we walk past every day and never truly see: the poor, disabled, elderly, and homeless. This book looks at the unseen forces that shape the location, design, and cost of housing and neighborhoods that impact disadvantaged populations. Invisible City moves past the front stage of a city (Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Times Square in New York, South Beach in Miami) and...

Housing is one of the most important problems facing the United States. Affordable, attractive, and accessible housing remains a major concern for millions of citizens in the United States and elsewhere. This chapter documents the dimensions of the housing crisis from an economic, social, and political perspective. Because of record economic growth, many observers mistakenly believe that housing as a social problem has been resolved. Their understanding is based on a simplistic analysis that relies on one or two economic indicators. This chapter presents the hidden dimensions of the housing problem in a more nuanced and sophisticated manner. My hope...

In this chapter we will explore the factors that help to determine rents across U.S. cities, an issue that has long been a topic of controversy. A comprehensive theory of urban rent that integrates the insights of sociology with economics has not been developed. In a previous study, my colleague Richard Appelbaum and I attempted to formulate a more dynamic, nuanced, sociological theory that moves beyond the rudimentary supply-and-demand theory, which fails to explain contemporary rental housing rates. The key theoretical arguments were: first, exogenous supply factors play little role in the determination of rents; and second, institutional factors such...

This chapter presents an overview of the impacts of modern rent control laws in the United States on landlords and tenants and on the supply, condition, and value of rental units. We will make clear that passage of a rent control law is not enough to ensure success. Renters need to have a strong grassroots organization in order to assure themselves of long-term success. Without a strong grassroots organization, rent control becomes only a symbolic response to the crisis, lacking any kind of substance. Most cities that have enacted rent control laws have been unsuccessful in lowering overall rents, due...

In this chapter we look at how barrier-free and affordable housing and transportation services for elderly and disabled persons have generally not been developed.¹ As we show later, very few books on housing address the considerable and important housing and transportation needs of the disabled and elderly. Here we will attempt to make this an important issue for progressive planning and housing. The elderly and disabled are often prevented from participating in employment, health care, shopping, social, and recreational activities, as well as exercising their freedom to live independently. Historically, our society has placed great emphasis on the institutionalization of...

In this chapter we address the dramatic change in direction that housing policy has undergone since 1989, when the U.S. Congress enacted the Department of Housing and Urban Development Reform Act. The act entailed establishing the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing (NCSDPH) to assess public housing stock and make recommendations for improvement. NCSDPH recommendations eventually led to establishment of the HOPE VI revitalization program.

The HOPE VI program began with five primary objectives: (1) change the physical shape of public housing; (2) reduce concentrations of poverty; (3) provide support services; (4) maintain high standards of personal responsibility; and...

In this chapter we explore how historic preservation can be a tool for creating affordable housing. Oddly, there has been a disconnect between historic preservation and housing affordability, but as we showed in Chapter 3, older housing stock provides a large array of affordable housing. In this chapter, we show how small inner-city lots with shotgun-style housing provide affordable housing and should be preserved.

There is at least one upside when a monumental disaster strikes a great city. With a disaster comes hope that the city can be rebuilt so that it is even better than before. The San Francisco...

In this chapter we show how universities can play a vital role in helping to address the housing crisis. This crisis impacts seniors, the disabled, and the working poor. Yet only a handful of the 3,650 higher education institutions are allocating resources of faculty, staff, and students to meet this urgent task. This is the story of one university that made a major effort to reclaim, rebuild, revitalize, and restore one of the nation’s most historic black neighborhoods, which had fallen into neglect and despair. The childhood neighborhood of Muhammad Ali, West Louisville was once a proud middle-class neighborhood.

Since...

In the previous chapters we have investigated the limits of the supply-and-demand housing policy promoted mostly by conservatives and the “regulation” approach advocated by liberals. I argue that the best kind of affordable housing is homeownership—especially as a long-term strategy—as Steven Hornburg (2001, iii) also explains:

Research surveyed shows that homeownership gives more control to owners over their physical surroundings and tenure, lowers real monthly payments over time, protects against unanticipated changes in rental costs, and helps build wealth. Homeownership also provides a ready mechanism for families to borrow money and get credit to, for instance, improve their...