Architecture / Buildings / Residential > Housing the Nation
Housing the Nation: Social Equity, Architecture, and the Future of Affordable Housing
By Alexander Gorlin, Victoria Newhouse
Where to buy
Publish Date
March 26, 2024
Category
Architecture / Urban & Land Use Planning
Social Science
Price
$47.00
Scholars, advocates, and architects assess America’s affordable housing crisis and suggest various strategies to rectify it, including numerous images of important, recently built houses and complexes.
On any given night, more than 650,000 people in the United States—many with families and full-time jobs—experience homelessness. The shortfall in affordable housing is estimated to be 5 million units or more. Devastating effects of these conditions include an increase in multigenerational poverty, a decrease in economic mobility, and—since the housing crisis has a disproportionate impact on communities of color—a heightening of racial injustice.
Just as there was no single cause of the crisis, there is no single cure. Assembled here are essays by economists, scholars, architects, planners, and community organizers to address diverse aspects of the subject. The book discusses the history and extent of the US housing crisis; permanent affordable housing and affordable housing as a component of market-rate residential buildings; the development of community associations that can build and manage local units; links between housing production and climate change; and the pervasive and long-term consequences of racial discrimination in the housing market. Recent buildings by Studio Gang, Koning Eizenberg Architecture, and others illustrate affordable housing at its best, offering a glimpse of possible solutions.
Included are essays by Dean Baker, Richard Florida, Robert Kuttner, Michael Gecan, Rosanne Haggerty, J. Phillip Thompson, Margery Perlmutter, David Dante Troutt, Justin Steil, Christopher Hawthorne, David Burney, Jon McMillan, Viren Brahmbhatt, Richard Plunz, Kenneth Frampton, Mark Ginsberg, Fernando Pagés Ruiz, Jessica Holmes, Rusty Smith, Andrés Duany, Alan Organschi, Andrew Ruff, and Elizabeth Gray.
This book is Flexibound.
Alexander Gorlin is an architect, scholar, critic, and a leader in the design of affordable housing. Alexander Gorlin Architects are the recipients of the 2023 Best Downstate Residence of the Year award from the New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH).
Victoria Newhouse is author of Rizzoli’s Parks of the 21st Century: Reinvented Landscapes, Reclaimed Territories.
Housing the Nation brings together a diverse variety of professionals to create a unique and valuable guide to making vital progress on the affordable housing crisis, including proposing and evaluating innovative solutions that can move the debate forward and make real progress on an issue so central to a vibrant economy and equitable society.
—Chuck Schumer, U.S. Senator
"A single book can hardly hope to solve the housing crisis, but this collection of instructional essays and photos from architects, economists, and scholars presents the case for well-informed activism." — New York Times
Housing the Nation is an exceptionally important book at this moment when the crisis in affordable housing appears to be overwhelming and insoluble.
Effectively organized and presented, a carefully curated selection of essays examines the complex root causes of the crisis as well as current barriers to funding and building affordable housing. Identifying the complex set of interconnected roles and resources, this collection provides a solid foundation for crafting effective solutions. Housing the Nation will become an essential resource for all stakeholders committed to addressing this critical issue.
