The Urban Housing Crisis

Zarembka's one-volume analysis and synthesis of four major aspects of the current housing crisis (financing/affordability, inadequate supply of lower-priced housing, discrimination, and displacement) provides, for each of the areas discussed, historical background, a review of alternative methods of problem resolution, and concrete proposals for new housing policies. Few, if any, books in the field investigate all four topics in such detail. Drawing on her legal training and experience, Zarembka also summarizes and interprets key legal concepts and court decisions that are relevant to the housing issue in terms the non-lawyer can understand. In addition, the work proposes a comprehensive platform for resolving the housing crisis. Chapter 1 summarizes the present housing crisis in the United States and reviews the federal government's response to that crisis. Issues arising in capitalist, socialist, and mixed economies in devising an equitable housing system are discussed in Chapter 2. Chapters 3 through 7 provide detailed analyses of the problems of financing, production and preservation, discrimination, and displacement, and give concrete proposals in each of those areas. The book concludes with a chapter discussing constitutional considerations that apply to the housing proposals, as well as mechanisms for financing them.

Public policy makers, housing experts, urban planners, housing and community activists, professors and students in the social sciences, minorities, and those interested in critiques of the existing social and economic structure will find the keen insights, systematic analysis, and proposals for change provided here important reading. The volume could well be used as a primary or supplemental text for courses in urban studies, public policy, sociology, political science, economics, social work, law, Afro-American studies, and history.