Dylan flagged an interesting op-ed in the Times today by economist sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh (recall him from Freakonomics, he was the guy who hung out with gangsters!). His argument that the Department of Housing and Urban Development is outmoded and unresponsive to the housing crisis is a pretty accurate one, but he's got a few things wrong. The piece offers a lot of criticism of HOPE VI, the program that demolished segregated housing projects and replaced them with mixed-income developments and vouchers.
Though the program has come under fire recently (see this Hannah Rosin article in the Atlantic), almost all housing experts think it's a good program. It's main problem is that it has been underfunded the point of nonexistence in recent years. But Venkatesh is right that we need to consider Urban and Housing problems in a more holistic way, realizing that the cities -- urbanized regions, really -- of today are different from the cities of the fifties and sixties. That may require demolishing HUD and replacing it with a department with a different focus, but we shouldn't throw out programs that can be successful, like HOPE VI, in the process.
--Tim Fernholz
