It’s no secret that community engagement is a necessary part of planning that includes citizens in the ways that their communities are shaped. What is a secret is the best way to run community engagement processes. Planners have had varying success with engagement plans when balancing how to include as many voices as possible with getting feedback that is valuable to planning projects. Continue reading How to Engage your Community Online
For many immigrants, owning a home is a sign of having achieved the American dream. With the economic recession and housing market downturn, there has been some concern about the decline in overall homeownership rates; however, immigrants remain enthusiastic about homeownership. The homeownership rate among the foreign-born population in 2015 was fifty percent, only ten percent lower than the rate among the U.S.-born population, but … Continue reading Owning a Home as an Undocumented Immigrant
This blog is part of a series spotlighting the writings of first-year DCRP Master’s students in fulfillment of PLAN720: Planning Methods in Fall 2017. The dearth of affordable housing options available to residents of our nation is slowly seeping into the national discourse, where previously it had largely been confined to the purview of urban planners, lawyers, and policy advocates. Matthew Desmond’s groundbreaking 2016 book, … Continue reading Affordable Housing Toolkit Snapshot: Inclusionary Zoning
Volume 42 of the Carolina Planning Journal is now available for free on the Carolina Planning Journal webpage. Just scroll to the bottom and click on the link! “The prefix ‘re-‘ holds two contradictory connotations. It can mean ‘again,’ or multiple repetitions, or it can mean a withdrawal or reversal. While one meaning implies forward motion, the other suggests retreat. And what a provoking approach to take to … Continue reading Now Available Online – Volume 42 of the Carolina Planning Journal
The Orange County Affordable Housing Coalition is hosting a summit to bring together elected officials, government staff, community organizations, and the public to have a conversation about affordable housing development in the county. The summit is planned for Friday, February 23rd from 10:00am to 1:30pm at St. Thomas More in Chapel Hill. The goal of the summit is to share the current state of affordable … Continue reading Orange County Affordable Housing Summit
What happens when a city’s economic growth and its affordability to residents are in competition? Last month, Asheville’s City Council voted to enact rules to slow the development of vacation rentals in its downtown area. The new rules come in the wake of the rapid conversion of housing into short-term rentals, which local leaders believe has complicated an increasingly expensive housing market. The development highlights … Continue reading Short-Term Rentals and Housing Affordability in Asheville, NC
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently made headlines by declaring that “housing rights are human rights.” His statement came on the heels of the Liberal government’s unveiling of Canada’s National Housing Strategy, notable in its embrace of a rights-based approach to housing. Prior to last week’s announcement, Canada was the only major industrialized nation in the world to lack a nationally coordinated housing strategy.1 Canada’s … Continue reading Revisiting the Right to Housing
