2000s
Summary
Security, housing affordability, and job retention are major development issues. Using a variety of federal, state, and local tools and financing incentives, state and local governments continue to partner with private sector developers to finance and develop housing, multi-use, and redevelopment projects.
Suburbanization continues, as does migration to the South and West. Select urban neighborhoods are gentrified by singles and childless couples, and minority and immigrant groups settle in older suburban areas.
Influences
- 9/11 terrorist attacks result in federal programs for homeland security.
- Public expresses concern in maintaining quality of life (e.g., commute time, safety, the environment, fuel costs).
- Growing emphasis on planning for sustainable development.
- Cities may use power of eminent domain and condemn private property for the sole purpose of revitalizing a local economy (Kelo vs. City of New London, 2005).
- Globalization and security.
- Town center development expands in suburban areas.
- Myron Orfield (2002) writes American Metropolitics, recommending that central cities and inner suburban areas form common-interest political coalitions.
- Immigration repopulates some inner-city neighborhoods.
- Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans reintroduces America to racial undertones of urban poverty.
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Policies and Programs
- Development easements for community amenities are frequently used.
- Oregon voters pass “Property Rights Initiative” in 2004, requiring compensation from local governments if land-use regulations impose economic loss on property owner.
- American Dream Down Payment Initiative (2003) subsidizes first-time homebuyers’ home purchases.
- Planning and local governments seek ethnically sensitive methods of public participation.
- Cities and counties develop financial incentive programs to attract people and growth industries.
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Institutional Roles
- Local governments develop cooperative agreements to solve regional problems.
- Local governments plan for the types of jobs to be created using jobs-housing balance targets to ensure balanced communities.
- Intergovernmental cooperation addresses environmental and social challenges of contemporary urban life.
- Department of Homeland Security makes grants to sub-national governments for disaster prepardness and planning.
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Methods, Tools, and Practices
- Tax credits are a primary tool for promoting housing and community development.
- Federal, state, and local governments contract with private sector for infrastructure development.
- Flexible mortgage options become available in response to escalating housing costs.
- Housing and transportation affordability index.
- Security is of increased importance in the design of public and other symbolic institutions.
- "Green" building standards incorporated into building designs.
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Lessons and Outcomes
- Suburban congestion and other problems mimic central-city problems.
- Dramatic rise in price of housing leads to reduction in supply of low- and moderate-income housing and an increase in the percent of income families pay for housing.
- Gated communities continue to be built to respond to people’s perceived need for security.
- Technology bubble bursts and record low interest rates shift investment from stocks into real estate.
- Hope VI program transforms public housing sites into mixed-income neighborhoods.
- Some institutions assist employees with housing finance (e.g., hospitals and schools).
- Hours and dollars spent commuting reach new highs in some metropolitan areas, heralding a new emphasis on transit-oriented development.
- Homeownership rate reaches all-time high of 69 percent.
- Marginal homebuyer concern about high-risk mortgages, a housing bubble, and defaults is expressed.
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