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Laurence Summers—head of the National Economic Council—responded to criticism of the Geithner Plan, “I don’t know of any economist who doesn’t believe that functioning capital markets in which assists can be traded are a good idea.” Economist Paul Krugman responded (NYT) saying that if Summers believe that bribing traders to participate is “better functioning” then Summers should get out more. Many economists believe that this plan could be disastrous.

The Plan would auction bad mortgages held by banks. The government would join the highest bidder with an equal purchase and provide a loan to the bidder up to 85% of the bid. The loan is supposed to provide leverage such that small upward movements will bring large gains to the speculator. According to Summers and Geithner, such auctions will determine their “fair” market value.

Of course small movements downward will bring loss to the speculator as well as the taxpayer, but the speculator can count on the government to do all it can to jack up home prices. Many economist, financers, and bankers have found the Plan disastrous.

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning (2008) economist, challenges the notion that such an auction will determine fair value as “market mystique.” He analyzes the arithmetic of the Plan and shows that it’s just another attempt to subsidize the real estate industry and mortgage bankers.

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The initiative is meant to respond to the UK’s housing shortage, as well as help partially fulfill climate change commitments. It is also meant to be an opportunity for housing developers to change the way they do business, and work with the proposed site’s local communities.

The government’s vision of the eco-towns was that the eco-town should be a:

Large-scale free-standing new settlements that are exemplars of sustainable building and living, with the opportunity to design low and zero-carbon technology from the beginning.

The Government wants to ensure that the delivery of eco-towns makes as much use of the existing infrastructure as possible.

It is encouraged that some, or even many, of the initial bids have proposals for developers to invest towards rail provisions The Government said that it saw eco-towns providing a major contribution to the housing supply and increasing affordability, including up to 50 per cent of affordable housing.

However, some opponents to this initiative claim that the eco-town approach may be illegal.

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As the world continues to be shaken up by horror stories on Wall Street, it might be worth taking a few steps back to consider your immediate quality of life.

SustainLane, a San Francisco based green media company has just announced its brand new U.S. city rankings today. Starting in 2005, SustainLane went through an exorbitant examination of sustainability initiatives in U.S. cities looking at a variety of factors: average traffic commutes, affordable housing, waste diversion, green space, energy usage, green buildings, natural disaster risk, air quality, water quality, public transportation, local food sources, and government innovations. James Elsen, the founder of SustainLane explains it in his article What’s A Sustainable City, Anyway ?

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From  Green Options’ sustainablog

In SustainLane’s first city ranking, released in spring 2005, Portland came out on top, with San Francisco and Seattle not far behind. In the words of James Elsen, West Coast cities and “blue” cities (New York, Chicago, Boston) turned out to be way ahead in the green game than “red” ones. The latest city rankings report benchmarks each city’s performance in 16 areas of urban sustainability, including an essential new measurement this year: Water Supply.

>> Read the rest of this post at sustainablog 

All of the materials necessary to build a wood frame house must be shipped into subarctic regions. Once built, a house in the far north must be able to withstand frequent high winds, and be extremely well insulted. Often, the fuel necessary to heat the home must also be shipped in. With fuel costs spiraling ever upward, the worsening of an already severe housing shortage is causing subarctic communities to explore alternative housing forms.

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According to Wikipedia, workforce housing has four defining elements:

• Affordability
• Home Ownership
• Key Workforce (in other words, composed of critical members of a community’s workforce such as police officers and teachers), and
• Proximity (to employment centers)

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It’s a question often heard from sustainability devotees who have been keeping an eye on the growth of the green housing market, yet still find themselves priced out due to the amount of up-front investment that is required when building green.

LEED ND Addresses Affordability

But the subject of affordability has finally entered the green building dialogue. The LEED ND rating system, which will go public early next year, has established a definition of sustainability that goes beyond energy savings. In addition to awarding points based on urban planning criteria such as utilization of infill sites and proximity to public transit, LEED ND also awards points based on affordability. Its Pilot Version Rating System awards 1-2 points (out of a possible 106 total points) for making “Affordable For-Sale Housing,” and offers three options for obtaining those points:

• Option 1: At least 10% of for-sale housing is priced for households up to 80% of the area median income (1 point),
• Option 2: At least 20% of for-sale housing is priced for households up to 120% of the area median income (1 point), or
• Option 3: At least 10% of for-sale housing is priced for households up to 80% of the area median income and an additional 10% of for-sale housing is priced for households at up to 120% of the area median income (2 points).

A Portland Neighborhood Earns Points for Affordability

Helensview Homes in Portland, OR, which recently received LEED ND Gold certification, is an example of a neighborhood that earned points for being affordable. The Helensview neighborhood was created by non-profit developer Home Ownership a Street at a Time (HOST); HOST’s homes are marketed to low- to moderate-income families, with the intention of helping renters become first-time homeowners. HOST has built more than 300 affordable homes in the Portland area since 1991. The Helensview neighborhood is presently under construction, and the current price range for one of these 2, 3, or 4 bedroom houses is $189,000 - $244,000. According to a May 2008 article in Sustainable Life, the median price for a home price in Portland is $339,900.

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