Land rent and housing policy: a case study of the San Francisco Bay area rental housing market.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, where residential rent is among the highest in the United States, an analysis of data from several sources demonstrates that high rent cannot be accounted for by higher quality, higher operating costs, or higher construction costs. At least one-third of the total rent paid is land rent. Despite increases in real incomes, very-low-income tenants in the Bay Area today have less income remaining after payment of rent than tenants did in 1960. High land rent is a long-term feature of the Bay Area rental market that results mostly from its geography, the density of its urban centers, and a strong economy, rather than from regulatory barriers to new multifamily construction. Deregulation is not a sufficient response to the effects of land rent on low-income tenants. Government should subsidize non-profit housing organizations, particularly land trusts that remove residential land from the market. Taxes on land rent would be a particularly appropriate funding source.

The role of the public sector in the provision of housing supply in Turkey, 1950­2009.

This study examines the changing role of the public sector in Turkey with regard to housing provision since 1950, and particularly since 2000, and seeks to clarify how public intervention has affected housing provision and urban development dynamics in major cities. Three periods may be identified, with central government acting as a regulator in a first period characterized by a 'housing boom'. During the second period, from 1980 to 2000, a new mass housing law spurred construction activity, although the main beneficiaries of the housing fund tended to be the middle classes. After 2000, contrary to emerging trends in both Northern and Southern European countries, the public sector in Turkey became actively involved in housing provision. During this process, new housing estates were created on greenfield sites on the outskirts of cities, instead of efforts being made to rehabilitate, restore or renew existing housing stock in the cities. Meanwhile, the concept of 'urban regeneration' has been opportunistically incorporated into the planning agenda of the public sector, and ­ under the pretext of regenerating squatter housing areas ­ existing residents have been moved out, while channels for community participation have been bypassed.

Vertical landscraping, a big regionalism for Dubai.

Dubai's ecologic and economic complications are exacerbated by six years of accelerated expansion, a fixed top-down approach to urbanism and the construction of iconic single-phase mega-projects. With recent construction delays, project cancellations and growing landscape issues, Dubai's tower typologies have been unresponsive to changing environmental, socio-cultural and economic patterns (BBC, 2009; Gillet, 2009; Lewis, 2009). In this essay, a theory of "Big Regionalism" guides an argument for an economically and ecologically linked tower typology called the Condenser. This phased "box-to-tower" typology is part of a greater Landscape Urbanist strategy called Vertical Landscraping. Within this strategy, the Condenser's role is to densify the city, facilitating the creation of ecologic voids that order the urban region. Delineating "Big Regional" principles, the Condenser provides a time-based, global-local urban growth approach that weaves Bigness into a series of urban-regional, economic and ecological relationships, builds upon the environmental performance of the city's regional architecture and planning, promotes a continuity of Dubai's urban history, and responds to its landscape issues while condensing development. These speculations permit consideration of the overlooked opportunities embedded within Dubai's mega-projects and their long-term impact on the urban morphology.

The big bang. The Hill-Burton Act put hospitals in thousands of communities and launched today's continuing healthcare building boom.

The Hill-Burton act of 1946 put hospitals in thousands of communities across the nation and launched a healthcare building boom that continues today. Robert Taft, right, a Republican senator from Ohio, played a large role in making certain that states, rather than the federal government, had maximum administrative authority.

Housing policy, aging, and life course construction in a Canadian Inuit community.

The provisioning and administration of social housing has been a continuous problem in the Canadian North since the 1960s, when the Canadian government began taking an active role in the welfare of Inuit. Some of these problems are quite basic and include high costs for construction and maintenance of units. An examination of the development and evolution of Canadian housing policy in the North demonstrates that changes to the administration of social housing programs and, since the mid-1980s, development of formal privatization schemes have steadily shifted housing costs onto local residents. These shifting costs, however, are borne unequally, with Inuit born and raised in the context of permanent communities (the Settlement Generation) facing the greatest burdens.