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AbstractGentrification, leading to displacement, is an increasingly recognized social problem. Individuals who are confronted with tight housing possibilities but have adequate incomes confront personal ethical issues on whether to act in ways that may contribute to displacement of lower‐income residents, and researchers working on housing issues may be particularly concerned. In order to work out an ethical position, clarity is first needed on the differences among the various aspects of gentrification. The working definition used here is that gentrification includes the danger of displacement. A public policy response is thus required to deal with its social injustices. Specific steps are suggested for the development of such policy. Secondly, the suggestion is made that the individual choice of whether to move in or not is, importantly, a personal ethical choice and should take into account both the economic and political impact of the move itself but also the contribution that can be made through collective and political action by an in‐mover to deal with the injustices of gentrification. However, it is also an ethical choice for the professions involved and their associations.

Clarifying what Karl Marx thought of the role of cooperatives is useful, not to receive the 'correct' answer to what that role will be, but to help think through what alternatives answers might be and how they might color today's expectations of the cooperative movement. Co-ops today are experiments whose potential is not yet exhausted, certainly improvements over most existing capitalist arrangements which have perhaps portents for the future, but which have limitations that must be recognized. Fundamental social transformation is used to refer to movement toward socialism, an alternative to present capitalist social formation. Marx's conception of socialism was of such an alternative, but one whose details could vary significantly as long as it was non-capitalist. Because Marx represents clear starting point for a history of experience with the modern forms of worker co-ops, this article looks at some of his comments in this regard to set the context to a more contemporary evaluation. Adapted from the source document.

This paper deals with one particular purpose for public space, the role it plays in permitting popular public participation in in democratic governance, democratic governance in a very political sense. For the United States, it might be called "First Amendment Space", after the provision in the U.S.A. Constituting establishing the rights of free speech and free assembly. In a broader sense, public space should also be available democratically and based on equality of rights for a full range of social interchanges, for recreation, sports, picnicking, hiking, running, sitting, chatting, simply enjoyment, by all people, equally. Such uses, carried out democratically, are in turn necessary for democratic governance, but in a different way. Let me call them "Social Spaces". And they may be divided between Convening spaces, where convening for the purposes of political effectiveness may be planned, and Encounter Spaces, where chance meetings and discussion may be take place without prior planning/convening. "Infrastructural Spaces" are also social spaces but in a different sense, not directly political: spaces for transportation, streets, sidewalks, recreational areas, parks, hiking trails, bicycles partially. he term "Third Space" is sometimes in fashion in a similar sense, and often defined as somewhere between public and private1. More on social spaces elsewhere. When public space is referred to here, it is in the sense of political public space, First Amendment space in the United States. Tahrir Square in Cairo, the Playa of Mothers in Buenos Aires, the Mall in Washington, D.C., Zuccotti Park in New York City, perhaps Central Park or Fifth Avenue, with its parades and marches, but also the fenced in space under the West Side highway at the time of the Republican Convention, and perhaps the indoor space of the Convention Center, as used for convening for discussions of alternate proposals for rebuilding after 9/11.

To begin with, we should be clear that "urban planning and development" is not a single subject, but have, in fact, a tense and awkward relationship despite being implicitly merged in the theme of this issue of the Berkeley Planning Journal. Leaving aside Richard Florida's rather superficial analysis of such issues, David Harvey certainly does not look to planning as a source of the economic crisis; he might argue it is the lack of publicly- oriented planning that has permitted development to metastasize within the economic system, setting off the present crisis. Planning is hardly an independent force in urban development; our long history shows how dependent, indeed generally subservient, planning is to the market, barely influencing it at the margin. "The market" is not considered an actor, and we avoid facing reality when we glibly speak of "the market" doing this or requiring that. There are specific actors in the market: developers, builders, bankers, Wall Street traders, investors, residents of various kinds, marketing firms, tenants and owners, and of varying economic positions, of various ethnicities, with various preferences. All significantly influence and are influenced by public portrayals of what is desirable (and what is not desirable) in cities. These actors do interact in the market, but they are present in government, in the media, educational institutions. (What do we teach, and what do we assume in our teaching?) Today, whether developers are more active in the market than in influencing governmental decisions is a toss-up; they operate both in the private and in the public sphere. In the public sphere these stakeholders are a more decisive force than are planners (i.e. planners working in the public interest).

The subprime crisis rests on three pillars: the dependence on profit–making in the provision of housing; the absence of adequate public regulation; and the myths of home ownership. Fourteen recommendations for remedial action are listed.

What is called the "subprime mortgage crisis" reflects an underlying crisis in the housing system: the inability of the market to provide adequate and affordable housing for large numbers of Americans. Household income is too low, and profit expectations by the private housing market are too high. Until today, this problem was met by government programs that tried to maintain the two causes of that inadequacy: promoting for lower-income households private home ownership, in homes supplied by the private market. Re-regulation of this market or mild answers like relief for distressed homeowners won't solve the problem. A radical change is needed. At the ideological level we need an educational campaign to illuminate the limits of home "ownership" and the range of available alternatives. At the economical level public financing has to cover the gap between even regulated housing costs and ability to pay until adequate incomes are guaranteed.

What is called the "subprime mortgage crisis" reflects an underlying crisis in the housing system: the inability of the market to provide adequate and affordable housing for large numbers of Americans. Household income is too low, and profit expectations by the private housing market are too high. Until today, this problem was met by government programs that tried to maintain the two causes of that inadequacy: promoting for lower-income households private home ownership, in homes supplied by the private market. Re-regulation of this market or mild answers like relief for distressed homeowners won't solve the problem. A radical change is needed. At the ideological level we need an educational campaign to illuminate the limits of home "ownership" and the range of available alternatives. At the economical level public financing has to cover the gap between even regulated housing costs and ability to pay until adequate incomes are guaranteed. (Prokla / FUB)