How to End the Housing Crisis and Take Back the Land

[marmar]

via AlterNet's PEEK:



How to End the Housing Crisis and Take Back the Land

Posted by Max Rameau, Take Back the Land at 10:16 AM on July 11, 2008.

Returning vacant, government-owned homes to families in need.




In the wake of record foreclosures and a gentrification crisis, communities are wringing hands and gnashing teeth in the fruitless pursuit of government assistance for housing. And the great irony of this housing crisis is that there is no shortage of either housing or government money.

In Miami, considered the epicenter of the housing bubble and a top region in the nation for foreclosures, several municipal governments voted to use $3 billion of public money to fund a series of unpopular, questionable, and secretly negotiated projects utilizing public land without the input of the actual public. Politically connected developers are expected to win virtually all of the contracts. Not surprisingly, during the brief discussion before votes to approve these projects, no elected official proposed building housing for those in need.

In the same way the Black community learned after the 1960s that the fundamental issue at the root of our misery was not the system of segregation, we are learning now that the fundamental issue at the root of the housing crisis is not gentrification. A much broader segment of the population will soon learn that the fundamental issue is not foreclosures either. The fundamental issue at stake in each of the above mentioned phenomenon is land and who will control it.

Corporate interests exercise inordinate amounts of control over land and the economy. When forced to choose between corporate interests and real, live human beings in need, an overwhelming number of elected officials invariably advance the interests of wealthy corporations and campaign contributors.

Consequently, we must control the land in our communities in order to solve the problems in our communities. This plan must develop with an open-eyed understanding that government is largely an impediment, not a partner, to the process. We must Take Back the Land. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/91193/

[Warpy]

1. Florida got pretty hideous under the GOP

with massive walls of condo towers obscuring most of the better beaches, time shares for yuppies denying access to Florida residents and visitors alike.

The GOP won't be happy until all pristine public land is home to yuppies and other conspicuous consumers, every landscape blighted by mansions with helipads or glitzy high rise towers.

Nature makes 'em nervous.

[El Pinko]

2. What housing crisis?

The housing crisis was from 2000-2006, when specuvestors and sleazy lenders drove the price of even dumpy starter homes out of the range of all but the wealthy and those willing to take out one of those crazy loans for a multiple of 7-10X their annual income.

The present price correction (still in its infancy) is just what the doctor ordered, IMO.