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Not TINA (There Is No Alternative) but TAPAS: THERE ARE PLENTY OF ALTERNATIVES
Curated by jean lievens
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Russell Brand's 'revolution' claims first victory as Tory MP's New Era Estate ... - The Independent

Russell Brand's 'revolution' claims first victory as Tory MP's New Era Estate ... - The Independent | real utopias | Scoop.it
It’s an unlikely place for a grassroots housing revolution, with coffee shops offering £4 smoothies, but trendy Hoxton in east London will forever be remembered as the place that Russell Brand’s revolution claimed its first victim: a property firm...
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One-Fifth of Detroit's Population Could Lose Their Homes

One-Fifth of Detroit's Population Could Lose Their Homes | real utopias | Scoop.it
Many families could stay put for just a few hundred dollars—if only they knew how to work the system.
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Blog #54 - Community Land Trusts as Transformative Housing Reforms

That New York City has a housing problem is rather well known. The devil here is indeed in the big picture as well as in the details. 47% of the city’s low-income renters[1] pay more than half of their incomes to obtain housing. Imagine what paying half your income just for housing means for the ordinary person, let alone one with limited income. 24% live in overcrowded quarters, more than 1.5 persons per room in the standard definition. Neighborhoods are clustered by race, ethnicity, income, household composition –what impolite critics call segregated, one of the most segregated (84.3 on the widely used dissimilarity index, where 100is completely segregated. Only Gary, Detroit, and Milwaukee, of the 314 other metropolitan area in the United States, are more segregated.[2] 224,000 units were in physically poor conditions. 164,000 units were vacant but not available for sale or rent, according even to the official figures.[3]There were 15,993 mortgage foreclosures in the city in 2013;

New Alternatives's curator insight, August 28, 2014 2:25 PM

Perhaps it goes without saying that for many residents of NYC #AffordableHousing isn't a reality.  Nearly half of low-income residents put half of their income towards housing.  And in many cases the housing is crowded. 

 

Can Community Land Trusts create better options for #AffordableHousing in NYC? 

 

One benefit of CLTs is:  They provide for deeply democratic management of their housing. By having not only residents but also neighbors and supporters from the wider community on their boards, they can provide diversity, establish priorities for expenditures, achieve efficiencies of scale, and put the strength of the trust behind individual members falling on hard times. 


It certainly seems worth a try! 

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Popular Neighborhoods and the Arab Spring: Elements for a Renewed Approach - Jadaliyya

Popular Neighborhoods and the Arab Spring: Elements for a Renewed Approach - Jadaliyya | real utopias | Scoop.it

Housing in most of the Arab world cities is an informal affair. After having founded a family, or to remain near employment opportunities, most people trying to find a place to live inend up building their houses themselves, or participating in construction projects managed either by families or by modest real-estate developers. Due to the government’s inability to provide or support affordable housing on a large scale, people have to cope on their own to access shelter and neighbourhoods. Despite the importance of the issue, very few studies have been conducted in the domain, and it remains relatively unnoticed. In fact, after the 2000s, the interest in the subject has even begun to dwindle. Urban studies were more focusing on megaprojects, which renew and extend the urban landscape in a much more spectacular manner, such as the making of new towns, luxury housing, malls, historical downtowns, new business districts, and coastal resorts...

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â–¶ EU favors bankrupt banks over homeless : Shakespeare - YouTube

European governments prefer depositing their money into bankrupt banks to financing housing for millions of homeless across the continent, an analyst tells Press TV in an interview.

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Scandal of Europe's 11m empty homes

Scandal of Europe's 11m empty homes | real utopias | Scoop.it
Housing campaigners denounce 'shocking waste' of homes lying empty while millions cry out for shelter
Brittany Ortiz's curator insight, November 10, 2014 5:20 PM

I wonder why all these homes are left empty and why there hasn't been an use of them. According to the article 11m is enough for "all the homeless twice over" so my question is why it's not being used to help people that need it clearly there's enough houses to do so. Or why not open something like a homeless shelter or something in that nature. It doesn't seem fair that all these houses are laying around not being used when it could easily become a way to help others that need it.

 

Curated by jean lievens
Economist, specialized in political economy and peer-to-peer dynamics; core member of the P2P Foundation