De Blasio’s Housing Plan | Renting the American Dream | Bike Share Resistance

A home destroyed during Superstorm Sandy in Mantoloking, New Jersey March 22, 2013. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

1. Questioning New York City’s Affordability New Yorkers assume that we live in the most expensive city in the country, and cost-of-living indexes tend to back up that assertion. But those measures are built around the typical American’s shopping habits, which don’t really apply to the typical New Yorker - especially not college-educated New Yorkers with annual household incomes in the top income quintile, or around $100,000. [New York Times – 04/23/13]
2. Mayoral Candidate Bill de Blasio Unveils His Plan for Affordable Housing Mr. de Blasio started out, as all candidates do, with a promise for the number of affordable housing units he’d create: 100,000 ‘new affordable units,’ plus preservation for ‘nearly 90,000’ others…But it’s once you get past Mr. de Blasio’s headline number that things start to get interesting. [New York Observer – 04/25/13]
3. Richard Florida Discusses Renting as Part of the New American Dream Home ownership is a well-entrenched component of the American dream. But, that may well be changing, according to a major survey released earlier this month from the MacArthur Foundation.For a majority of Americans today, renting is a viable path to achieving their version of the American dream, the study finds. [Atlantic Cities – 04/23/13]
4. Housing Likely Playing A Large Role in Post Sandy Distress Alexis Merdjanoff, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Rutgers, says the role of housing on post-disaster stress hasn’t received enough attention in the past. Traditionally, disaster researchers have focused on race, class, and gender to explain the mental anguish that occurs in the aftermath of a storm. “Racial minorities and low-income individuals and women - they all tend to fare worse,” she says. [Atlantic Cities – 04/25/13]
5. Black and Latino Homeowners Paying More Than Whites in Major US Cities, Study Finds The days of overt redlining - that nasty practice of corralling people of different races and ethnicities into different parts of a city - may be over, but evidence of de facto, neighborhood-based segregation persists everywhere you look.The days of overt redlining - that nasty practice of corralling people of different races and ethnicities into different parts of a city - may be over, but evidence of de facto, neighborhood-based segregation persists everywhere you look. [Next City – 04/24/13]
6. New York’s New Bike Share Program Faces Resistance in Fort Greene Historic District Citi Bike Share is causing a stir in Fort Greene. Newly installed stations were recently defaced with signs that read “Citibank, residential landmark blocks are not for advertising or commercial activity,”  Brownstoner first reported. But the Landmarks Preservation Commission gave the city the go ahead to install the stations. [DNAinfo – 04/23/13]
7. Mayoral Candidates Favor Restoring Housing Placements for Homeless, Despite Some Expert Critiques With more than 48,000 people sleeping in the city’s homeless shelters every night, and no end to the crisis in sight, homelessness certainly has been a topic of discussion among the candidates for mayor.But while most candidates advocate a return to familiar strategies designed to help shelter residents move into their own apartment as quickly as possible, some experts hope to convince the next mayor to do the opposite: revamp the shelters, and stop offering housing to people who end up there. [City Limits – 04/23/13]
8. 15-Year Mortgage Rates Hit Record Low Even as borrowers face challenges from strict credit standards and high unemployment, mortgage rates dropping over the past year to reach record or near-record lows are expected to continue to support the housing market. [Marketwatch – 04/25/13]
9. Newark Considers Utilizing Eminent Domain to Prevent Foreclosures More than 88,000 homes have been foreclosed on in New Jersey in the past four years - 6,810 homes in Newark alone, according to a report, Newark Homewrecker, by the activist group New Jersey Communities United (NJCU).  During a City Council hearing last week on the impact of foreclosures in Newark, NJCU members asked the city to explore the powers it has under eminent domain to keep banks from foreclosing on any more homes. [WNYC – 04/21/13]
10. Jimmy “The Rent is Too Damn High” McMillan to Run for NYC Mayor in 2013 t’s finally a mayoral race. Jimmy McMillan, bewhiskered avatar of the Rent Is Too Damn High party, entered the scrum on Wednesday with the “Rent Is Too Damn High” anthem, a song and video produced for him by the folks at the blog AnimalNewYork. [New York Times – 04/24/13]