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False charges of racial profiling threaten to obliterate the crime-fighting gains of the last decade, especially in America's inner cities. This is the message of Heather Mac Donald's new book, in which she brings her special brand of tough and honest journalism to the current war against the police. The anti-profiling crusade, she charges, thrives on an ignorance of policing and a willful blindness to the demographics of crime. In careful reports from New York and other major cities across the country, Ms. Mac Donald investigates the workings of the police, the controversy over racial profili

Dr Heather MacDonald ; School of Built Environment ; University of Technology Sydney. ; Stimulating affordable, accessible infill development is essential if Sydney's housing deficit is to be reduced without the environmental impacts of large scale Greenfield development. But despite a Metro Strategy that targets 70% of new development for infill sites, an enhanced array of Commonwealth and State housing supply subsidies, and increased state government intervention in development regulation, too little affordable market rate housing is being developed (NHSC2010). One important reason claimed by some commentators is that low-priced housing is not financially feasible in accessible locations. Some interesting recent analyses have identified a significant gap between the costs of housing development and the price at which it will sell, and suggest that merely increasing densities will not resolve this problem (NHSC 2010; Graus 2010). Is it possible to rethink the form in which subsidies are provided, or the ways that development is regulated, to enable developers to produce housing that is both affordable and accessible? This paper investigates this question, using a hypothetical set of development options for three sites in Sydney's middle ring suburban southwest. I focus on market rate housing affordable to new home buyers (although there is significant overlap with the provision of affordable market rate rental housing). I do not address the provision of social housing which generally provides deeper subsidies to low income households, although the argument presented here may have implications for subsidized housing provision. Sydney's housing affordability problems stretch quite far up the income distribution, with median home prices reaching $625,488 in mid-2010 (APM 2010). I begin by reviewing the metropolitan area's development environment, examining major explanations for the housing deficit, and recent research on the impacts of current homeowners' subsidies. I discuss briefly the literature on the significance of infill development (and transit accessibility) for both environmental sustainability and affordability. Next, I summarize the results of recent research on the housing cost-price gap. Based on the gap identified in this 2 research, I discuss alternative ways the cost-price gap could be filled to make moderately priced housing feasible in infill locations with good public transport access. I develop a series of sensitivity analyses to test out these alternatives in three locations. The paper concludes by summarizing the policy implications of the analysis.

ABSTRACTAccess to credit in lower‐income communities has become an increasingly central public policy issue in financial sector regulation over the past five years. One important reform was the establishment of purchasing goals for the government‐sponsored secondary mortgage markets (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) in 1992. This paper examines the central city lending goal, using the St. Louis MSA as a case study. Census tracts are clustered according to five variables argued to impede secondary market purchases of home loans in some neighborhoods. Borrower characteristics and lending patterns are compared across the clusters of tracts, and across central city and suburban tracts. Clustered tracts are found to be more strongly related to a set of key lending variables than are tracts divided according to central city/ suburban boundaries. The paper concludes that targeting affirmative lending requirements on the basis of neighborhood characteristics rather than political or statistical divisions may provide a more appropriate framework for efforts to expand access to credit. However, the analysis of spatial differences in lending patterns raises a number of questions that require further research.

The Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), the agency in charge of the thrift bailout, is directed to expand the supply of affordable housing for low- and moderate-income households by reserving less valuable residential real estate for sale through the Affordable Housing Disposition Plan (AHDP). The author examines the evolution of the AHDP and the disappointing performance of both the single-family and multifamily portions of the program. Two principal explanations for the RTC's poor performance are assessed: The agency is subject to competing mandates that undermine a focus on housing, and the AHDP has not resolved the institutional and credit constraints that undermine affordable-housing efforts in general.