With red-hot real estate markets from New York to San Francisco displacing those of modest means, struggling cities like Detroit constantly fending off insolvency, and the addition of 3 billion urban residents globally by 2050, how in the world are cities going to pay for affordable housing and basic infrastructure for a decent quality of life for all? One innovation in financing has particular promise: value capture, based on the idea that government actions (like a zoning change) and public investments (like a light rail line) prompt significant increases in property value for private developers and landowners — such that the private sector can be asked to contribute to the creation of this infrastructure in the first place.
Anthony Flint is a fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the author of Modern Man: The Life of Le Corbusier, Architect of Tomorrow (New Harvest, 2014), Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City, (Random House, 2009) and This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); and co-editor of Smart Growth Policies: An Evaluation of Programs and Outcomes (Lincoln Institute, 2009). He has been a journalist for 30 years, primarily at The Boston Globe, a policy advisor on smart growth for Massachusetts state government, a visiting scholar and Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and a fellow at The American Library in Paris and the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center. AHe is also author of the blogs At Lincoln House, Developing Stories, and This Land. @anthonyflint.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx