> To sweeten the pot, workers who move back to cities do not
> necessarily have to give up the joy of homeownership. Look
> at a great majority of American cities -- especially in the
> Midwest. Most of them look pretty vacant. Half to three
> quarters of perfectly good downtown lots are occupied by
> boarded-up houses and businesses that _once existed there_.
> (Cf. <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/
> lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050530/011156.html>.) Use eminent
> domain, and give them away to workers and small business
> owners, and give them also grants and/or cheap credit to
> rehabilitate them. That in itself will also create jobs.
I cannot pass this opportunity for some shameless self-promotion.
The coop where I live http://www.potomacassoc.com/experience_the_best_that_baltimo.htm
is a prime example of reclaiming vacant urban houses and providing an alternative to individual house ownership. The coop was established in one of the most blighted part of the city in the 1970s, as a part of the public housing initiative. Whereas the government and developers were favoring Section 8 housing - which basically fattened the pockets of developers and landlords, a group of activists persuaded HUD to channel some of the development funds to establish a member-governed (instead of city-managed) coop instead. This was the 1970s, of course, so such inititiatives were not immediately killed by neo-liberals, but the end result was a viable alternative for working class housing - on the one hand, we are very affordable and ontheother hand we keep the criminal and delinquent element as well as real estate speculators out. By contrast, the conventional condominiums in MD face a very serious problem of delinquency in payment of maintenance fees, many of them fold for that reason. Our bylaws prohibits sub-leasing and give the Board a strong control over who moves in. Individual units cannot be sold for a profit - which keeps the speculators out.
Ok, our web page http://www.washingtonhill.com/outside_home.asp sucks. However, most of our members are working class, and not particularly computer savvy.
I moved there from a condo that nearly went bankrupt due to the nonpayment of maintenance fees, made some improvements to the property (which was still much cheaper than paying interest and real estate comission that "homeowners" are stuck with). My wife joined me last year when she moved from central PA suburbs - and we plan to stay there until we die, or move to EU if needed.
This is an example of a good use of public housing funds to benfit the working class people rather than developers and landlords.
Interestingly, cooperative housing is quite popular in Europe and Canada -but in this country land speculators and developers managed to sell a far more exapensive "individual home ownership." I think developmehnt of cooperative housing is one of the positive proposals that the left in this country can offer as an alternative to capitalism.
Wojtek