Chasing The Affordable Dream

Download or read book Chasing the Affordable Dream written by P K Das and published by Bombaykala Books. This book was released on 2018-06-27 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: India is grappling with a burgeoning urban crisis. The promised 100 'smart' cities continue on the drawing board and the promise of 'Housing for All by 2022' is a distant dream. Demonetization, meanwhile, has frozen the real estate market that heretofore largely catered to the rich. Suddenly, market forces and the demands of the 'great unwashed' have coalesced to make the concept of 'affordable housing' a workable reality. And it is Mumbai, a city with the gravest shortage of land and the largest of slum populations, which has now become the laboratory for the experiment. As different stake holders jostle for land and policy concessions, the authors of the book argue that by reserving and exploiting land held by government agencies and occupied by slums, it is possible not only to house the poor but to create enough housing stock to wipe out Mumbai's housing shortage. The authors - PK Das, Gurbir Singh, Ritu Dewan, and Kabir Agarwal - are among the founding members of Nivara Hakk, a Mumbai-based housing rights organisation, and much of their three decades of experience is reflected in the book.

Download or read book Chasing the American Dream written by William M. Rohe and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing decent, safe, and affordable housing to low- and moderate-income families has been an important public policy goal for more than a century. In recent years there has been a clear shift of emphasis among policymakers from a focus on providing affordable rental units to providing affordable homeownership opportunities. Due in part to programs introduced by the Clinton and Bush administrations, the nation's homeownership rate is currently at an all-time high. Does a house become a home only when it comes with a deed attached? Is participation in the real-estate market a precondition to engaged citizenship or wealth creation? The real estate industry's marketing efforts and government policy initiatives might lead one to believe so. The shift in emphasis from rental subsidies to affordable homeownership opportunities has been justified in many ways. Claims for the benefits of homeownership have been largely accepted without close scrutiny. But is homeownership always beneficial for low-income Americans, or are its benefits undermined by the difficulties caused by unfavorable mortgage terms and by the poor condition or location of the homes bought? Chasing the American Dream provides a critical assessment of affordable homeownership policies and goals. Its contributors represent a variety of disciplinary perspectives and offer a thorough understanding of the economic, social, political, architectural, and cultural effects of homeownership programs, as well as their history. The editors draw together the assessments included in this book to prescribe a plan of action that lays out what must be done to make homeownership policy both effective and equitable.

Download or read book Black American Refugee written by Tiffanie Drayton and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named "most anticipated" book of February by Marie Claire, Essence, and A.V. Club "…extraordinary and representative."—NPR "Drayton explores the ramifications of racism that span generations, global white supremacy, and the pitfalls of American culture."—Shondaland After following her mother to the US at a young age to pursue economic opportunities, one woman must come to terms with the ways in which systematic racism and resultant trauma keep the American Dream inaccessible to Black people. In the early '90s, young Tiffanie Drayton and her siblings left Trinidad and Tobago to join their mother in New Jersey, where she'd been making her way as a domestic worker, eager to give her children a shot at the American Dream. At first, life in the US was idyllic. But chasing good school districts with affordable housing left Tiffanie and her family constantly uprooted--moving from Texas to Florida then back to New Jersey. As Tiffanie came of age in the suburbs, she began to ask questions about the binary Black and white American world. Why were the Black neighborhoods she lived in crime-ridden, and the multicultural ones safe? Why were there so few Black students in advanced classes at school, if there were any advanced classes at all? Why was it so hard for Black families to achieve stability? Why were Black girls treated as something other than worthy? Ultimately, exhausted by the pursuit of a "better life" in America, twenty-year old Tiffanie returns to Tobago. She is suddenly able to enjoy the simple freedom of being Black without fear, and imagines a different future for her own children. But then COVID-19 and widely publicized instances of police brutality bring America front and center again. This time, as an outsider supported by a new community, Tiffanie grieves and rages for Black Americans in a way she couldn't when she was one. An expansion of her New York Times piece of the same name, Black American Refugee examines in depth the intersection of her personal experiences and the broader culture and historical ramifications of American racism and global white supremacy. Through thoughtful introspection and candidness, Tiffanie unravels the complex workings of the people in her life, including herself, centering Black womanhood, and illuminating the toll a lifetime of racism can take. Must Black people search beyond the shores of the "land of the free" to realize emancipation? Or will the voices that propel America's new reckoning welcome all dreamers and dreams to this land?

Download or read book The Dreamt Land written by Mark Arax and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid, searching journey into California's capture of water and soil—the epic story of a people's defiance of nature and the wonders, and ruin, it has wrought Mark Arax is from a family of Central Valley farmers, a writer with deep ties to the land who has watched the battles over water intensify even as California lurches from drought to flood and back again. In The Dreamt Land, he travels the state to explore the one-of-a-kind distribution system, built in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, that is straining to keep up with California's relentless growth. The Dreamt Land weaves reportage, history and memoir to confront the "Golden State" myth in riveting fashion. No other chronicler of the West has so deeply delved into the empires of agriculture that drink so much of the water. The nation's biggest farmers—the nut king, grape king and citrus queen—tell their story here for the first time. Arax, the native son, is persistent and tough as he treks from desert to delta, mountain to valley. What he finds is hard earned, awe-inspiring, tragic and revelatory. In the end, his compassion for the land becomes an elegy to the dream that created California and now threatens to undo it.

Download or read book Singlewide written by Sonya Salamon and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-15 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Singlewide, Sonya Salamon and Katherine MacTavish explore the role of the trailer park as a source of affordable housing. America’s trailer parks, most in rural places, shelter an estimated 12 million people, and the authors show how these parks serve as a private solution to a pressing public need. Singlewide considers the circumstances of families with school-age children in trailer parks serving whites in Illinois, Hispanics in New Mexico, and African Americans in North Carolina. By looking carefully at the daily lives of families who live side by side in rows of manufactured homes, Salamon and MacTavish draw conclusions about the importance of housing, community, and location in the families’ dreams of opportunities and success as signified by eventually owning land and a conventional home. Working-poor rural families who engage with what Salamon and MacTavish call the "mobile home industrial complex" may become caught in an expensive trap starting with their purchase of a mobile home. A family that must site its trailer in a land-lease trailer park struggles to realize any of the anticipated benefits of homeownership. Seeking to break down stereotypes, Salamon and MacTavish reveal the important place that trailer parks hold within the United States national experience. In so doing, they attempt to integrate and normalize a way of life that many see as outside the mainstream, suggesting that families who live in trailer parks, rather than being "trailer trash," culturally resemble the parks’ neighbors who live in conventional homes.

Download or read book Chasing The Hunter's Dream written by Jeffrey Engel and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-05-28 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the guiding philosophy of "The Honorable Pursuit of Fish and Game," Jeff and Sherol Engel and James A. Swan present their expert advice on the most enjoyable and affordable places to hunt both big and small game throughout North America, Mexico, Africa, Asia, Europe, and Down Under. Organized by location, Chasing the Hunter's Dream covers the best hunting spots and possible game as well as outfitters, guides, and lodges. This book also serves up some tasty wild game recipes and shares inspiring stories of extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime "dream hunts." The authors provide information on preparing for each hunt and how to get a trophy home, and they share wonderful hunting camp remembrances. Chasing the Hunter's Dream is for the modern hunter and those others who may wish to join them in enjoying the passion and the pleasure of hunting. Informative and inspiring, this is the one book that all hunters must own.

Download or read book Chasing the American Dream written by Mark Robert Rank PhD and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States has been epitomized as a land of opportunity, where hard work and skill can bring personal success and economic well-being. The American Dream has captured the imagination of people from all walks of life, and to many, it represents the heart and soul of the country. But there is another, darker side to the bargain that America strikes with its people -- it is the price we pay for our individual pursuit of the American Dream. That price can be found in the economic hardship present in the lives of millions of Americans. In Chasing the American Dream, leading social scientists Mark Robert Rank, Thomas A. Hirschl, and Kirk A. Foster provide a new and innovative look into a curious dynamic -- the tension between the promise of economic opportunities and rewards and the amount of turmoil that Americans encounter in their quest for those rewards. The authors explore questions such as: -What percentage of Americans achieve affluence, and how much income mobility do we actually have? -Are most Americans able to own a home, and at what age? -How is it that nearly 80 percent of us will experience significant economic insecurity at some point between ages 25 and 60? -How can access to the American Dream be increased? Combining personal interviews with dozens of Americans and a longitudinal study covering 40 years of income data, the authors tell the story of the American Dream and reveal a number of surprises. The risk of economic vulnerability has increased substantially over the past four decades, and the American Dream is becoming harder to reach and harder to keep. Yet for most Americans, the Dream lies not in wealth, but in economic security, pursuing one's passions, and looking toward the future. Chasing the American Dream provides us with a new understanding into the dynamics that shape our fortunes and a deeper insight into the importance of the American Dream for the future of the country.