2016
"Unequal City"
How wealthy tourists have gentrified Jackson Hole, Wyoming, into a housing crisis
In March 2016, the family of 11-year-old Ventura Garcia Perez, otherwise known as “Vennie,” received an eviction letter. Born in Jackson, Wyoming, Vennie lives in the 56-unit Virginian Village Apartment complex with his parents, his four-year-old brother Dominic, and his dog Charlie. Throughout this summer, the owners of the Virginian are evictingseveral hundred tenants on a rolling timeline so the apartments can be remodeled and sold or rented at higher rates.
"Letter from Dorothy Walker, noted planner, to City Council"
The presentations to the City Council at the workshop on housing on February 16 included a great deal of helpful data and many recommendations about how to achieve more housing to serve all income levels. In the Council discussion that followed, it was clear that all members agree there is a housing crisis that requires sustained effort and new approaches.
...More"Solution to SF’s homeless problem starts with supportive housing"
Could San Francisco increase its stock of supportive housing by enough units to get all of the neediest homeless people off its streets in just two years?
Fixing San Francisco’s homelessness problem is possible.
It will require the addition of thousands of housing units for the hardest-core homeless people — the ones who wander the streets, screaming at the invisible, the ones who live in tents on sidewalks and shoot up in plain sight.
...More"SF homeless problem looks the same as it did 20 years ago"
Fifty years ago, the destitute figures who dotted America’s streets were called winos and hobos, and in San Francisco they mainly stuck to Third Street’s Skid Row.
Then, with the end of the Vietnam War, battle-shocked veterans began filling urban alleyways. The 1980s brought Reaganomics’ decimation of federal social and housing programs, and a cascade of the poor and mentally ill landed on the streets.
...More"Tiny living: What it’s like after the honeymoon period"
One of my strange obsessions is watching TV shows about people building or buying tiny houses — generally 400 square feet or less.
These shows check back with the tiny-home owners shortly after they’ve moved in, when they are still infatuated with their adorable doll houses.
...More"This is why San Francisco’s insane housing market has hit the crisis point"
Five years ago, I moved to San Francisco — right as the current startup boom kicked off.
Those five years saw a lot of change in the city, as tensions between longtime San Francisco residents and the tech industry hit a fever pitch.
It all traces its roots back to the San Francisco Bay Area’s housing crisis, where people are going to ridiculous lengths, including living in boats, vans, and cardboard boxes, just to make ends meet.
...More"Tiny Home Test Drive"
Last week, the first tenants moved into the city’s first micro apartment development on East 27th Street. I did, too, for one night.
Tucked into a New York City Housing Authority site, on a spot between First and Second Avenues that was once a parking lot, and flanked by linden and honeylocust trees and a small plaza lined with park benches, the nine-story building, with 55 apartments between 260 and 360 square feet, is an elegant design by nArchitects, and built by Monadnock Development and the Lower East Side People’s Mutual Housing Association.
...More"Construction begins of Arup-designed micro apartments"
Construction began last week of modular micro apartments designed to help solve student housing issues in Berlin, Germany.
The concept, developed by Arup, Berlinovo Immobilien and others, was created because of the high demand for affordable student housing in Berlin.
The first construction project on Storkower Straße in the district of Lichtenberg is part of a plan that aims to build a total of 2,500 apartments by 2020.
...More"A guy just transcribed 30 years of for-rent ads. Here’s what it taught us about housing prices"
I don’t know anything about Eric Fischer except that he’s a freaking hero.
Much like everyone else who has recently attempted to live in San Francisco, Fischer is very interested in housing costs. However, unlike every other such person, Fischer decided to contribute to this conversation by doubling the depth of modern historical data about them.
"What Makes A Thriving And Interesting City? Something Called Collision Density"
How often are you going to run into someone with whom you can do something creative or interesting?
Who was right, Jane Jacobs or Alfred Marshall and Michael Porter? The renowened urbanist, Jacobs argued for decades of the importance of density and diversity of economic actors in cities as a primary driver of innovation. Economists Marshall and Porter, on the other hand, have argued that clustering of similar industries in industrial parks and regions is the best way to stimulate innovation, job growth, and economic development.
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