It is now widely agreed that "affordable housing" is a primary rhetorical obstacle to more intelligent human settlement patterns. Nationwide, major initiatives to improve the pattern and density of land use have been derailed by claims that the proposed action to make human settlement pattern more functional will "wipe out affordable housing."  

 

While nearly everyone favors affordable housing as a theoretical goal, there is much more that needs to be understood about it. The core issues have to do with location/spacial distribution and with confusing "affordable housing" with "low-quality housing."

 

If a community is to have affordable housing (as opposed to poor-quality housing), the most effective strategies are:

• Raise the income of the households without adequate housing;

• Lower the price of the existing housing stock by introducing competition.

The problem with the first approach is that the range of housing options now being offered does not meet the needs of the majority of those in search of more suitable housing. A companion problem with the first approach is that subsidy and income redistribution have staunch ideological opponents -- "I have mine; let them earn theirs."

 

The problem with the second approach is that the majority of existing homeowners do not want to have the value of their existing homes driven down due to affordable (aka, less expensive) housing coming on the market in their dooryard, cluster or neighborhood.

 

HOUSING, A COMPLEX ISSUE

 

It is clear from these two points that achieving an affordable range of housing options is a complex issue. Upon further review, it gets more convoluted very quickly:

 

·    Policies and programs at federal, state and municipal levels have established multi-billion-dollar subsidies (e.g., the mortgage interest deduction on income tax) that are intended to lower an individual's cost of housing. However, the great majority of the subsidy goes to those at the top of the economic food chain.

     Increasing home ownership is a positive goal for society as the ads by Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac espouse. However, owning a home in a dysfunctional location is not a benefit to the occupant or the community.

 

·    Both the land for housing and the dwelling units themselves are sold in transactions involving agents. This means there is a third party in whose interest it is to see that the price is ratcheted up as high as the market will bear.

 

·    Housing is supplied by a speculative, profit-driven competitive process. Because of the municipal control mechanisms now in place, the housing units being built are the ones that yield the highest profit per unit for the builder, not the ones in greatest demand in the market. 

 

·    Trickle-down housing supports the entrepreneurial goals of a market-driven society, but it does not work any better than socialized housing in providing `decent and affordable' housing for all the citizens of a community. 

 

The last two issues are related to the larger issue that in the United States -- as contrasted with all other nation-states in the First World -- speculative gain is the primary driving force in creating human settlement patterns.

 

CHEAP LAND AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING

 

The goal of affordable housing is often raised by those who argue that making more land available for development will create affordable housing. Those who gain monetarily from housing in scattered locations advocate the extension of highways to provide access to "cheap land."  

 

Cheap land does not yield affordable housing. If land is cheap, it is because it is not worth as much when compared to other land in the region.  This "cheapness" is no "bargain" because it yields no socially desirable benefit for the future occupant. There is no "bargain" to be had except to the project developer. 

 

Dwelling units are sold by builders for the highest price that the market will bear (i.e., the prospective homebuyer will pay) in that location. The homebuyer does not get a "good deal" on the price of his home because the developer bought the land on which the house sits at a low cost. The builder does not pass on the land-cost savings.

 

Bargains can be found in the retail trade where, due to a relatively well-informed market, the law of supply and demand can operate. True bargains can almost never be found in land within New Urban Regions or Urban Support Regions in the First World .  Land in remote locations may be priced based on its value for extensive (non-urban) land uses -- e.g., forestry or agriculture. This land is not a "bargain" because it is not appropriate for urban land uses like housing. These sites result in scattered units, dooryards or clusters of urban housing.  hey are, by definition, dysfunctional human settlement patterns.

 

Cheap land does not yield "affordable housing"; it yields "lower-quality" housing. Housing that is dramatically less expensive per square foot is almost always housing in bad locations relative to jobs, services, recreation and amenities. This poorly located, lower-quality housing is subsidized by the taxpayers in the municipality, the state and the region. 

 

Less expensive but lower-quality housing is also subsidized by the homeowner. How do the owners subsidize their own housing? By spending their time in travel to jobs and services, by paying the transport costs to and from the home's dysfunctional location and by doing without quality services, recreation and amenity. Also, when these owners decide to sell, their homes are on the market longer and they appreciate less than well-located dwellings. The Surface Transportation Policy Project has documented the costs for housing that is badly located in a report titled Driven to Spend, STPP, 2000. "The $100,000 Difference" explores the difference in price and value of identical houses in two different locations in the Virginia Subregion in the report titled The Shape of Loudoun County's Future, SYNERGY/Resources, 1998.)

 

QUALITY VERSUS AFFORDABILITY

 

Quality housing is a prerequisite of a stable society.  Quality housing for all is a critical goal in a democracy. Affordability is only one requirement for quality housing. Another important one is accessibility. Location is as important as sound construction or affordability. A good dwelling unit in a bad location will not provide a quality home.

 

Sound, affordable and accessible housing cannot be created by "Business as Usual."  It requires fundamental change.

 

The best way to achieve affordable and accessible housing is not to try to stop change. Critics of "gentrification" complain that residents in the National Capital Subregion are being "priced out of their neighborhood" as in Georgetown in the '50s, McLean in the '60s, Old Town in the '70s, Capital Hill in the '80s and Reston in the '90s. The "enemy"  that the critics of gentrification need to attack is not change but the driving force now controlling civilization -- unbridled economic competition. 

 

The more useful path to expanding the opportunity for affordable and accessible housing is to rebuild every community -- and all the components within those communities. The goal should be to make every place where there is housing into a desirable place to live. This will require rebuilding, revitalization and renewal of the components of human settlement to create balanced communities within sustainable regions.

 

The current level of public subsidy for housing would be more than sufficient to assure there was affordable and accessible housing for all citizens if this subsidy were directed toward building better components of human settlement pattern.  At the present time, the vast majority of these resources are used to subsidize the individual units of well-to-do citizens, along with developers, their agents and other stakeholders in the development process.

 

Finally, it must be understood that the problem is not a shortage of land devoted to urban land uses including housing. There is already more land devoted to the built environment than could be efficiently and effectively used to house and serve the projected population through 2050.

 

SUMMARY

 

Creating affordable and accessible housing is one of the key challenges to achieving functional human settlement patterns. Citizens must understand the role of housing location and the occupant's accessibility to jobs, services, recreation and amenity in the formula for creating quality housing.  Building balanced communities in sustainable regions is the only feasible path to creating affordable and accessible housing.