Housing

Can limited profit be good business and create better housing?

In our final Typecast installment exploring towers-in-the-park, Maura Ewing chronicles the lives of two Coney Island housing developments and exposes the political context that undergirds their architectural innovation, construction shortcomings, and the deferred maintenance that threatens their viability as affordable housing assets.

Charles Chawalko relates the tension surrounding his coop’s upcoming vote on its future in the Mitchell-Lama affordable housing program.

Susanne Schindler's in-depth analysis of Sugar Hill, an iconic new housing and cultural complex in Harlem, suggests new ways to broaden limited ideas about what architecture can contribute to housing for low-income residents.

Soaring rent can often seem like a vague, mysterious force, like bad weather, for which no one in particular is responsible.

Marcus Moore and Sam Miller of Picture the Homeless, an organization led by homeless and formerly homeless people, discuss their activism on issues of affordable housing, police harassment, and shelter reform.

Brian Loughlin, the chief architect for the Jersey City Housing Authority, takes us on a tour of recent renovations and rehabilitations, demonstrating the architectural innovation and policy acumen required to navigate federal housing programs and create sound homes and neighborhoods.

Caitlin Blanchfield uncovers the nuances of Co-op City that make this unique development relevant to our broader understanding of social infrastructure, intergenerational continuity, community pride, and affordability.

Oksana Mironova charts an alternative strategy to land ownership and property management that helps communities solve a broad range of problems — including widening inequality and decreasing community control over housing costs — that affect residents across the country.

As the only person to have managed housing authorities for all three of the nation’s largest cities, Joseph Shuldiner, current director of the Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority, has a unique and invaluable perspective on what it takes to make public housing work.