Innovations

A proposal to use eminent domain to ward off foreclosures in two cities in San Bernardino County has been slammed almost unanimously by both Wall Street and federal regulators. The most powerful dissenter was Edward J. DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who said on August 7 that he would resist any effort by local governments to “take” homes owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two agencies under his supervision; those agencies buy the majority of US home loans and repackage them as mortgage-backed securities.

When Axl Rose first stepped off the bus from Indiana, took the stage at the Whisky, and screeched out the opening lines of “Welcome to the Jungle,” he probably wasn’t thinking about parking. But he might as well have been. 

The City of Riverside's plan for spending $6 million in federal aid for foreclosures promises participation in nearly every category of rescue listed by the the Department of Housing and Urban Development, including rehabilitation, readying properties for sale to homeowners, and even demolishing properties that are too far gone and selling the land to Habitat for Humanity, the volunteer home building group.

Just as a well-aimed bowling ball can be expected to knock down all ten pins and boost a bowler to a top score, many planners believe that a well-written zoning ordinance can steer the housing market toward socially beneficial ends. There is a difference between a bowling lane, however, and a downtown area.