The Affordable Housing Reader brings together classic works and contemporary writing on the themes and debates that have animated the field of affordable housing policy as well as the challenges in achieving the goals of policy on the ground. The Reader – aimed at professors, students, and researchers – provides an overview of the literature on housing policy and planning that is both comprehensive and interdisciplinary. It is particularly suited for graduate and undergraduate courses on housing policy offered to students of public policy and city planning.

The Reader is structured around the key debates in affordable housing, ranging from the conflicting motivations for housing policy, through analysis of the causes of and solutions to housing problems, to concerns about gentrification and housing and race. Each debate is contextualized in an introductory essay by the editors, and illustrated with a range of texts and articles.

Elizabeth Mueller and Rosie Tighe have brought together for the first time into a single volume the best and most influential writings on housing and its importance for planners and policy-makers.

Contents

Part 1: Conflicting Motivations for Housing Policy in the US Part 2: Conflicting Views of Causes of Housing Problems, Proper Focus of Assistance Part 3: Low Income Homeownership – Historical and Current Perspectives Part 4: Shifting Emphases in the Provision of Affordable Housing: Production, Vouchers and Preservation Part 5: Competing Goals: Revitalization of Poor Neighborhoods versus Moving to Opportunity? Part 6: Development Regulations and subsidies as Cause, Solution to Housing Problems Part 7: Housing and Race: Enduring Challenges, Debated Strategies Part 8: What Next? The Future of Housing Policy

Author Bio

J. Rosie Tighe is an assistant professor in the department of Geography and Planning at Appalachian State University, USA. She is interested in social equity, race and class inequality, and housing afity issues. Her current research focuses on gentrification, the evolving nature of the American Dream, and community responses to the foreclosure crisis.

Elizabeth J. Mueller is an associate professor of community and regional planning and social work at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. She is interested in the ways that public actions shape the social, economic and political opportunities and experiences of vulnerable communities within cities. Her current work focuses on the tensions between current city planning and housing goals.