Tuesday, September 18, 2007

When Matter and Antimatter Collide ...

Today, I'll spend my early morning at an Urban Land Institute forum at the Westin, listening to a multi-millionaire named Ron Terwilliger talk about the need for workforce housing in Seattle. Terwilliger's message is that tax incentives and deregulation can offer incentives to developers to build housing for moderate income people. This will reduce the inefficiencies associated with commuting and make our local economy hum like a new Lexus. The place will be crawling with developers and bureaucrats. Fun.

Then, I'll mosey on over to Grace Lutheran in Des Moines where the Interfaith Taskforce on Homelessness is once again Building the Political Will to End Homelessness. Keynote speaker Joe Martin has promised a thundering Jeremiad to knock us out of our accommodating complacency, and John Fox will be there, as always, to point out that we are losing ground on housing and need to develop a sense of urgency to match the moment. I'll join the afternoon panel on gentrification, and sometime between now and then will figure out what I'm going to say. John will come armed with charts. I will not. I will, however, reproduce John's charts here.

Afterwards, I'll try and make some sense of this phenomenon of housing advocacy in parallel universes, and try to answer the question of what would happen were those universes were to collide. Hint: Click on the picture of Spock for the answer.





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