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A generation ago little attention was focused on low-income homeownership. Today homeownership rates among under-served groups, including low-income households and minorities, have risen to record levels. These groups are no longer at the margin of the housing market; they have benefited from more flexible underwriting standards and greater access to credit. However, there is still a racial/ethnic gap and the homeownership rates of minority and low-income households are still well below the national average. This volume gathers the observations of housing experts on low-income homeownership and its effects on households and communities. The book is divided into five chapters which focus on the following subjects: homeownership trends in the 1990s; overcoming borrower constraints; financial returns to low-income homeowners; low-income loan performance; and the socioeconomic impact of homeownership.

The major economic story of the last decade has been the surge and collapse of house prices worldwide. Yet political economists have had little to say about how this critical phenomenon affects citizens’ welfare and their demands from government. This article develops a novel theoretical argument linking housing prices to social policy preferences and policy outcomes. I argue that homeowners experiencing house price appreciation will become less supportive of redistribution and social insurance policies since increased house prices both increase individuals’ permanent income and the value of housing as self-supplied insurance against income loss. Political parties of the right will, responding to these preferences, cut social spending substantially during housing booms. I test these propositions using both microdata on social preferences from panel surveys in the USA, the UK, and a cross-country survey of 29 countries, and macrodata of national social spending for 18 countries between 1975 and 2001.

Examines the pullback occurring among insurance companies in MS with regard to issuing homeowners' policies in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, actions seen to expose flaws in the mixed private-government insurance system that have implications for the entire US. This issue centers on the wind- & flood-related damage that homeowners suffered at the hands of the storm. In this light, the prospect of an all-government insurance scheme is looked at, along with the difficult choices that come with alternatives to an increasing government role in providing such insurance. D. Edelman

We review and synthesize information on invasions of nonnative forest insects and diseases in the United States, including their ecological and economic impacts, pathways of arrival, distribution within the United States, and policy options for reducing future invasions. Nonnative insects have accumulated in United States forests at a rate of

Generation Priced Out is a call to action on one of the most talked-about issues of our time: how skyrocketing rents and home values are pricing the working and middle classes out of urban America. Randy Shaw tells the powerful stories of tenants, politicians, homeowner groups, developers, and activists in over a dozen cities impacted by the national housing crisis. From San Francisco to New York, Seattle to Denver, and Los Angeles to Austin, Generation Priced Out challenges progressive cities to reverse rising economic and racial inequality.   Shaw exposes how boomer homeowners restrict millennials' access to housing in big cities, a generational divide that increasingly dominates city politics. Shaw also demonstrates that neighborhood gentrification is not inevitable and presents proven measures for cities to preserve and expand their working- and middle-class populations and achieve more equitable and inclusive outcomes. Generation Priced Out is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future of urban America.  

In the United States, the past 50 years have witnessed a remarkable expansion of formal associations in residential neighborhoods, including homeowners associations, condo associations, crime watch groups, tenant associations, and special-interest neighborhood coalitions. Despite their prevalence and growing role in neighborhood governance, the relationship of these associations to interpersonal trust and networks among residents and outsiders remains understudied. Drawing on the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS), we estimate the impact of neighborhood association membership on bonding and bridging social capital in a nationally representative sample of residents. Among non-homeowners, our findings suggest that neighborhood association membership is linked to bonding social capital (such as a propensity to socialize and cooperate with neighbors and a positive perception of impact on community conditions), as well as bridging social capital (such as a greater likelihood of trust in racial out-groups). These benefits from neighborhood association membership are attenuated or reversed among homeowners. The results underscore the need for social scientists to consider the inherent tension in neighborhood associations, as institutions that ensure the protection of property values, on the one hand, and that promote neighborhood cooperation and quality of life, on the other.

In the 1980s, the blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis Say, and rodents were recognized as the principal vector and reservoir hosts of the Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi in the eastern United States, and deer were incriminated as principal hosts for I. scapularis adults. These realizations led to pioneering studies aiming to reduce the risk for transmission of B. burgdorferi to humans by attacking host-seeking ticks with acaricides, interrupting the enzootic transmission cycle by killing immatures infesting rodent reservoirs by means of acaricide-treated nesting material, or reducing deer abundance to suppress tick numbers. We review the progress over the past three decades in the fields of: 1) prevention of human–tick contact with repellents and permethrin-treated clothing, and 2) suppression of I. scapularis and disruption of enzootic B. burgdorferi transmission with environmentally based control methods. Personal protective measures include synthetic and natural product-based repellents that can be applied to skin and clothing, permethrin sprays for clothing and gear, and permethrin-treated clothing. A wide variety of approaches and products to suppress I. scapularis or disrupt enzootic B. burgdorferi transmission have emerged and been evaluated in field trials. Application of synthetic chemical acaricides is a robust method to suppress host-seeking I. scapularis ticks within a treated area for at least 6–8 wk. Natural product-based acaricides or entomopathogenic fungi have emerged as alternatives to kill host-seeking ticks for homeowners who are unwilling to use synthetic chemical acaricides. However, as compared with synthetic chemical acaricides, these approaches appear less robust in terms of both their killing efficacy and persistence. Use of rodent-targeted topical acaricides represents an alternative for homeowners opposed to open distribution of acaricides to the ground and vegetation on their properties. This host-targeted approach also provides the benefit of the intervention impacting the entire rodent home range. Rodent-targeted oral vaccines against B. burgdorferi and a rodent-targeted antibiotic bait have been evaluated in laboratory and field trials but are not yet commercially available. Targeting of deer—via deer reduction or treatment of deer with topical acaricides—can provide area-wide suppression of host-seeking I. scapularis. These two deer-targeted approaches combine great potential for protection that impacts the entire landscape with severe problems relating to public acceptance or implementation logistics. Integrated use of two or more methods has unfortunately been evaluated in very few published studies, but additional field evaluations of integrated tick and pathogen strategies are underway.

The COVID-19 pandemic adds a layer of precarity to the current housing crisis, brought about by a series of social and economic policies that transformed housing for living into a commodity.1 Amid economic slowdowns, business closings, and distancing restrictions, the pandemic exposes important gaps in housing policy.2 Although the pandemic has affected homeowners, landlords, and renters, given the magnitude and severity of consequences for renters specifically, I raise evictions as a point of concern.The housing system is complex, representing multiple stakeholders. I focus on those most likely to be affected by the pandemic to illustrate how the current system is failing lower-income tenants. This piece is not about the details of recent policies per se (e.g., the American Rescue Plan). Instead, I examine renter-focused initiatives to raise questions about whether current measures alone will ensure housing security for renters going forward. This is important because the majority of lower-income renters are (or were previously) employed in industries that have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, examining the impact of the pandemic on tenants experiencing financial distress may highlight lessons for improving housing policy going forward.