Excerpted from the Los Angeles Times, November 12, 2009
We are a country still in the thrall of homeownership.
Ironically, owning may make more sense to some people today than when housing markets were booming. After all, chances are greater now that people will buy at or near the bottom. But should Americans assume that homeownership is always the right choice? We should spend as much time thinking about how public policy can encourage intelligent housing choices as we have thinking about how it can encourage intelligent mortgage choices. The choice to own or rent comes first.
Let’s assume that the way to get out from underneath the weight of foreclosures is to not let speculators and homeowners at risk of falling behind again roll the dice.
Let’s instead consider programs that aggregate ownership of properties, especially two- to four-unit ones, in the hands of nonprofits that can rent them out. These small complexes are estimated to account for up to two in five foreclosures. It might make more sense to get these properties into the hands of nonprofits that own many properties, so that a single rental vacancy constitutes the loss of only a small fraction of rental income. By contrast, one vacancy could constitute up to 100 percent of the rental income needed to make the mortgage payment for a resident/owner of a single small property, making that a less stable investment.
It’s time we make homeownership just one option in a more innovative, affordable and broader housing market.
Eric S. Belsky is executive director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. He wrote this commentary for the Los Angeles Times.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Rethinking Family and Divorce
I envision this blog as a more professional forum than my learning journal. And yet the subject I have been rethinking all week is very personal. Because all of us are affected in some way by the way we frame family and divorce, I have decided to share some of my thoughts.
My experience with family is that it is more declarative than accidental. We speak and our actions align with our speaking, and something is created. We may have been born into a certain family, but that family was born for the most part through another declaration: one of love. Love may change its shape and form, it may even have a certain natural trajectory, but we can honor it throughout its arc.
I am thinking of the many conversations I have had with friends in India about arranged marriage vs. "love matches" as they are called there. I remember asking my friend Mingmar, whom I had known for about 15 years at the time, how he could love a complete stranger who had been brought in to marry him on about 2 weeks' notice. His answer was simple and profound to me: "Why do you love your child? You love your child because she is your child. I love my wife because she is my wife."
Certain people I consider family out of simple declaration, and I know this is common. My brother's ex-wife and one of his ex-girlfriends will always be family. Certain friends have earned that distinction through the blessing of a shared kindred spirit. Note the root of the word "kindred." Some of these ties are certainly stronger than simple blood relation.
How does all this relate to divorce? Divorce is a declaration too. Rarely as simple as "I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee," it redefines a relationship central to family. Having made the declaration that I am divorcing the father of my children, I navigate the rocky coastline of this new part of my personal journey, doing my best to remain creative and avoid wreckage. My brother Sandy and my friend Paul have managed this, and I have faith that I can too. Relationship can be honored even as it is redefined. I declare my intention to do so.
My experience with family is that it is more declarative than accidental. We speak and our actions align with our speaking, and something is created. We may have been born into a certain family, but that family was born for the most part through another declaration: one of love. Love may change its shape and form, it may even have a certain natural trajectory, but we can honor it throughout its arc.
I am thinking of the many conversations I have had with friends in India about arranged marriage vs. "love matches" as they are called there. I remember asking my friend Mingmar, whom I had known for about 15 years at the time, how he could love a complete stranger who had been brought in to marry him on about 2 weeks' notice. His answer was simple and profound to me: "Why do you love your child? You love your child because she is your child. I love my wife because she is my wife."
Certain people I consider family out of simple declaration, and I know this is common. My brother's ex-wife and one of his ex-girlfriends will always be family. Certain friends have earned that distinction through the blessing of a shared kindred spirit. Note the root of the word "kindred." Some of these ties are certainly stronger than simple blood relation.
How does all this relate to divorce? Divorce is a declaration too. Rarely as simple as "I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee," it redefines a relationship central to family. Having made the declaration that I am divorcing the father of my children, I navigate the rocky coastline of this new part of my personal journey, doing my best to remain creative and avoid wreckage. My brother Sandy and my friend Paul have managed this, and I have faith that I can too. Relationship can be honored even as it is redefined. I declare my intention to do so.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Alternatives to Constant Growth Models: A Vision from Judy Wicks
Found a great new source today: GlobalGeopolitics.net. They are now on my list of inspiring blogs to follow.
Here is an excerpt from yesterday's post on ENVIRONMENT: Rethinking Jobs for a Sustainable Economy.
"The possibility of environmental catastrophe has led many leaders, scholars and average citizens to reconsider an economy based on constant growth. It is becoming clear that people, especially in the United States, will need to consume less in the way of natural resources to avoid planetary peril. The million-dollar question, of course, is how the U.S. can move to a sustainable, zero-growth economy without losing more jobs. If people are consuming fewer goods and services, does that mean fewer jobs in the manufacturing, sale, and provision of those goods and services? 'It’s a good question because we are faced with unsustainable levels of consumption right now,' said John Talberth, president for the Center for Sustainable Economy. 'The whole economy collapses if we don’t consume enough, and we’ve got to change.'"
"Judy Wicks, founder of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies says, 'It’s going to mean more businesses, many more owners. Business ownership will be distributed much more broadly,' Wicks said. 'This means that the benefits of our consumption as a community will go more to families, and less to stockholders and financial institutions', she explained. 'Local ownership really brings out the unique, supports local innovators. In local living economies, we support our local artists, local musicians, our local culture, so that our community creates unique products that express our local culture. It might be a great wine, a great cheese, a new fashion… it could be anything a community creates,' Wicks said, 'so that our economy is about creating things that celebrate our being human [instead of] commodity crops.'"
I have been a fan of Judy Wicks ever since meeting her last year as a Change Agent In Residence (CAIR) at Bainbridge Graduate Institute. Her vision makes a lot of sense to me.
I then think of the structural problem I noticed last year when studying microcredit and noticing how difficult it is to translate that model to an American context. In India, for example, it takes very little in the way of resources to set someone up to be able to make a living for their family with a small business. You can be illiterate and still support your family. Here, even allowing for the difference in cost of living, etc, our economy is structured to require a good deal more in the way of resources: education, cultural literacy, and a much steeper financial requirement for even the most basic business. This makes the micro-lending model significantly less micro, and less simple, at least in terms of application to developed economies. And it is the developed economies that require the most adjustment if we are to save the planet.
Where does this point us? Perhaps Judy's note that with a focus on local living economies, the benefits of our consumption as a community will go more to families, and less to stockholders and financial institutions holds some of the answer. If we can cut out-- or down-- the percentage of profit that leaves the community, we can keep more of what we make, and we may need to make less money entirely to make the system fly. We can downshift with less pain, and perhaps some added pleasure in terms of the quality of our lives.
What do you think?
Here is an excerpt from yesterday's post on ENVIRONMENT: Rethinking Jobs for a Sustainable Economy.
"The possibility of environmental catastrophe has led many leaders, scholars and average citizens to reconsider an economy based on constant growth. It is becoming clear that people, especially in the United States, will need to consume less in the way of natural resources to avoid planetary peril. The million-dollar question, of course, is how the U.S. can move to a sustainable, zero-growth economy without losing more jobs. If people are consuming fewer goods and services, does that mean fewer jobs in the manufacturing, sale, and provision of those goods and services? 'It’s a good question because we are faced with unsustainable levels of consumption right now,' said John Talberth, president for the Center for Sustainable Economy. 'The whole economy collapses if we don’t consume enough, and we’ve got to change.'"
"Judy Wicks, founder of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies says, 'It’s going to mean more businesses, many more owners. Business ownership will be distributed much more broadly,' Wicks said. 'This means that the benefits of our consumption as a community will go more to families, and less to stockholders and financial institutions', she explained. 'Local ownership really brings out the unique, supports local innovators. In local living economies, we support our local artists, local musicians, our local culture, so that our community creates unique products that express our local culture. It might be a great wine, a great cheese, a new fashion… it could be anything a community creates,' Wicks said, 'so that our economy is about creating things that celebrate our being human [instead of] commodity crops.'"
I have been a fan of Judy Wicks ever since meeting her last year as a Change Agent In Residence (CAIR) at Bainbridge Graduate Institute. Her vision makes a lot of sense to me.
I then think of the structural problem I noticed last year when studying microcredit and noticing how difficult it is to translate that model to an American context. In India, for example, it takes very little in the way of resources to set someone up to be able to make a living for their family with a small business. You can be illiterate and still support your family. Here, even allowing for the difference in cost of living, etc, our economy is structured to require a good deal more in the way of resources: education, cultural literacy, and a much steeper financial requirement for even the most basic business. This makes the micro-lending model significantly less micro, and less simple, at least in terms of application to developed economies. And it is the developed economies that require the most adjustment if we are to save the planet.
Where does this point us? Perhaps Judy's note that with a focus on local living economies, the benefits of our consumption as a community will go more to families, and less to stockholders and financial institutions holds some of the answer. If we can cut out-- or down-- the percentage of profit that leaves the community, we can keep more of what we make, and we may need to make less money entirely to make the system fly. We can downshift with less pain, and perhaps some added pleasure in terms of the quality of our lives.
What do you think?
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