By Andre Shashaty
The year 2015 will mark the 50th anniversary of the beginning of an extraordinary series of events in American history. In August of 1965, the black residents of Watts in Los Angeles rebelled against a mayor and a police force many considered to be racist. The fires and the violence raged for six days, resulting in 34 deaths and the destruction, damage, or looting of 1,000 buildings.
After more rioting in 1966 and 1967, a presidential commission on urban problems was convened and Congress enacted a series of programs to provide affordable housing and revitalize cities. In 1968, equal access to housing regardless of race became the law of the land.
Rebuilding a Dream looks at what's been achieved since then, and how we are now falling short in providing affordable housing and ensuring urban vitality. It explains how our government's commitment to housing and cities has waned in recent years. The decline in funding and elimination of certain key programs could not have come at a worse time, after foreclosures devastated lower-income communities and economic stagnation continued without relief.
The book explains how, at the same time, there has been a powerful backlash among mostly white communities against federal efforts to enforce the laws intended to ensure nondiscrimination in housing and provision of credit.
Rebuilding a Dream examines the failure of federal and state governments to maintain sound policies and address the growing problems of runaway housing costs and renewed decay of our cities in the wake of economic decline and foreclosures. It talks about why the shortage of affordable housing will get worse, how homeownership is increasingly out of reach for many Americans, and what we can do about these problems.
Finally, this book focuses on the good news about positive steps forward that we can build on, if we can find the political will to do so. It busts the negative mythology perpetuated by political opponents of housing programs and NIMBYs. It celebrates success stories of housing and urban development programs, highlights exemplary developments, and explains the promising ideas for getting more good results in the future.
This book is on sale now at the Sustainability Bookstore http://www.sustainabilitystore.org/
You can read selected excerpts, here: http://www.p4sc.org/articles/all/excerpts%2CRAD