Housing and American Privatism: The Origins and Evolution of Subsidized Home-Ownership Policy

1993 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul George Lewis

In the late 1980s, congressional investigations revealed patterns of influence peddling, lack of oversight, and poorly targeted expenditures at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, criticizing both the content and administration of various federal housing initiatives. Some commentators have concluded that the dogged preference for a private-sector strategy and the privatization of public activities in the Reagan administration—goals pursued while the agency suffered dramatic budget cuts—are at the root of recent HUD embarrassment.

Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802110178
Author(s):  
Frances Brill

This article argues that urban governance, and academic theorisations of it, have focused on the role and strategies of real estate developers at the expense of understanding how investors are shaped by regulatory environments. In contrast, using the case of institutional investment in London’s private rental housing (Build to Rent), in this article I argue that unpacking the private sector and the development process helps reveal different types of risk which necessitate variegated responses from within the real estate sector. In doing so, I demonstrate the complexities of the private sector in urban development, especially housing provision, and the limitations of a binary conceptualised around pro- and anti-development narratives when discussing planning decisions. Instead, I show the multiplicity of responses from within the private sector, and how these reflect particular approaches to risk management. Uncovering this helps theorise the complexities of governing housing systems and demonstrates the potential for risk-based urban governance analysis in the future.


1984 ◽  
Vol 17 (01) ◽  
pp. 33-40
Author(s):  
Robert Jervis

A rational strategy for the employment of nuclear weapons is a contradiction in terms. The enormity of the destruction, either executed or threatened, severs the nexus of proportionality between means and ends which used to characterize the threat and use of force. This does not mean, however, that all nuclear strategies are equally irrational. The nuclear policy of the Reagan administration—which is essentially the same as that of the Carter administration and which has its roots in developments initiated by even earlier administrations—is particularly ill-formed. As I will demonstrate, the basic reason for this is that the strategy rests on a profound underestimation of the impact of nuclear weapons on military strategy and attempts to understand the current situation with intellectual tools appropriate only in the pre-nuclear era.American strategy for the past several years—the “countervailing strategy”—has been based on the assumption that what is crucial is the ability of American and allied military forces to deny the Soviets military advantage from any aggression they might contemplate. The U.S. must be prepared to meet and block any level of Soviet force. The strategy is then one of counterforce—blocking and seeking to destroy Soviet military power. The goal is deterrence. Although it is concerned with how the U.S. would fight many different kinds of wars, both nuclear and non-nuclear, it is not correct to claim that the strategy seeks to engage in wars rather than deter them.


1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 14-16
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Volman

Studies of U.S. government relations with Africa have generally focused on the role of the executive branch, specifically by examining and analyzing the views and activities of administration officials and the members of executive branch bureaucracies. This is only natural, given the predominant role that the executive branch has historically played in the development and implementation of U.S. policy toward the continent. However, the U.S. Congress has always played an important role in determining U.S. policy toward Africa due to its constitutional authority over the appropriation and authorization of funding for all foreign operations conducted by the executive branch. Furthermore, Congress enacted legislation on several occasions during the Cold War period that directly affected U.S. policy. For example, Congress approved the Clark Amendment prohibiting U.S. intervention in Angola (although it later voted to repeal the amendment) and also passed the 1986 Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, which imposed sanctions on South Africa over the veto of the Reagan administration.


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