This post is section of my assignments done as part of Harvard’s Public Leadership Certificate’s “Leadership and Ethics” course, We performed an individual exercises with feedback to interrogate and challenge our value system. It was a great exercise, chance for self reflection, group reflection, and an approach to step back and see where your peers are coming from to come up with not the “right” solution but the adaptive solution.
I reused my previous exercise to work on adaptive leadership, You can see links to previous issue below.
Technical Solution
Issue Description
Greater Boston Area has a significant shortage of affordable housing causing severe impact on existing population that rent their homes, as well as immigrants that come to Boston area in search of future jobs etc. Affordable housing is a public good (supports labor for economic growth, and diversity of community). Inelastic demand for rental markets, the suppliers (developer and managers) cater to high income market for higher profits, reducing affordable housing options.
The new supply of cheap housing construction is hindered by high housing standards and limited building permits issued by the existing counties. Not issuing additional building permits continue to grow the unit prices, and support both county tax, as well as existing property owners, but it is detrimental to new occupants. Lastly, massive housing construction might need upgradation of utilities (parking, water, sewage, etc.) that is a bulk added cost, and is costly to integrate in county budgets.
Affordable housing is an issue in most of the top growing cities, where the demand for new immigrants vastly outpaces the supply of housing units. Additionally, the cost of constructing a new house is prohibitive to develop affordable housing units unless sufficiently subsidized by the local government. (Urban Institute, NHC, 2016), hence most real-estate developers opt for higher end market development to improve profit margins.
The supply of building permits to match affordable housing (controlled by Local Governments), is also restrictive due to several factors, including NIMBY, maintaining high housing prices, burden on existing amenities, etc. They need to be sufficiently incentivized to provide the permits needed to match the demand.
Lastly, affordable housing is not a short-term issue, as the number of affordable housing units become available, the demand increases as Greater Boston may become more livable and opportunity destination. The metro area not only attract national immigrants, but also international. As the ecosystem develops, the demand will keep on rising. A balance of affordable and managed growth of housing is needed to support the current population and upcoming migration.
Which difficult realities exist in my challenge, how am I contributing to them, and how can I mobilize people to address them? (600-800 words)
Reality 1- Existing Homeowners do not want their way of life to change rapidly, and their landmarks be demolished or modified. (NIMBY): The status-quo for the existing homeowners is to reap the benefits of housing demand, and to increase property values, to see their assets increase over time. In addition to improving asset valuation, Not participating in additional housing, (and let other counties take in additional residents) can continue to flourish the Boston ecosystem which is great for long term residence. There is staunch support for Zoning laws enforcing Single Family Housing Units with Supported land area etc., that allows for Street Parking etc., allowing tight knit communities across streets. Additional mega housing construction projects change their way of life.
Reality 2- Migrant Population and existing Home-Renters cannot find affordable housing: Constantly increasing rent is pricing out existing residents to the outskirts of the cities and challenging the livability in Greater Boston. The income does not match up to the increasing rent (Rent Control is prohibited by state law). The affordable housing voucher (Section 8) program is grossly underfunded and over-subscribed, with complex application processes, and discriminatory statutes (Senior Living, Local preference). The housing units are mostly divided into three categories, income-restrictive affordable housing, low-end housing (limited vacancies, and moderately high rents), and abundant high-end housing with unaffordable rents. Migrants working in the blooming economy can afford to use high-end housing leaving medium income earners forced to move to the outskirts.
Reality 3- Real-Estate developers are not incentivized to build affordable housing: With limited building permits issued each year, and high demand for housing development in the area, the real-estate developers cannot afford to rent houses at an affordable rate (Urban Institute, NHC, 2016). The margin of profit becomes feasible for high-end housing development where significantly higher prices can be achieved. The demand for low-income housing is an incomplete market where there are no lower-end suppliers, only older units qualify for this category. Abundance of building permits, especially targeting the low-income segment with large economies of scale is required to incentivize the construction for this segment.
Reality 4- Local Governments benefit from increasing housing prices and find it difficult to approve large projects: The current local governments have a strong commitment for keeping housing price high, as it contributes to its voting base, as well as tax base. Any changes in new housing units need significant benefits as amenities to improve viability of proposals to support development (The Boston Foundation, 2022). Any changes to Zoning laws (E.g., Single-Family housing), may need investment in amenities (e.g. Parking) that can be cost prohibitive. The lower equilibrium can be disrupted only by large scale community redevelopment (Boston Housing Authority, 2023) which is much harder to pass in councils, where status quo is so much more desirable.
Reality 5- State Governments and local businesses benefit from more affordable housing: Local businesses find it harder to get low wage workers and are out-competed. Only higher end jobs, or service jobs (in person, with high rates), are viable employment opportunities in the longer term as they do not suffer from direct competition from outside. Lacking an end-to-end production cycle is detrimental to an entrepreneurship ecosystem where design and production should be hand in hand. Additionally, most of the benefits of affordable housing (in terms of reduced economic support, and higher business taxes) are accrued by State Governments, and they are in the right position to fund long-term housing affordability projects.
Reality 6- Affordable housing is not a short-term challenge, success in reducing the challenge will increase it further: This is the kind of problem where greater success invites greater challenge. Affordable Boston becomes attractive to national and international talent to migrate in search of opportunities. Lack of affordable housing could be serving as dampener to reduce demand for migration, which can flurry up further as more affordable housing becomes available. Long term viable solution should accommodate increasing demand for such a housing need.
Keeping all these conflicting and justified realities in mind, affordable housing is a complex problem where the whole society will need to come together to support and solve for long term solution. The solution needs to change the narrative to treat increasing population as an economic (bigger market) and social (diverse) asset instead of a burden, and redevelopment of existing structures is an upgrade in livability over existing status quo. Many models of redevelopment exist that support partial redevelopment and improved vibrancy in communities. (Urbane, 2022). We need adaptive leadership to bring the people together and energize them towards a new vision for the community and support continuous redevelopment.
References
Boston Housing Authority. (2023). City of Boston Approves First Phase of $2 Billion Redevelopment Planned for New England’s Oldest Public Housing Community. Boston : Boston Housing Authority. From https://www.bostonhousing.org/en/News/City-of-Boston-Approves-First-Phase-of-$2-Billion.aspx
The Boston Foundation. (2022). Boston Foundation. (2022, June 28). The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2022: With special analysis of equity in subsidized housing. Boston: . (Retrieved from https://nonprofitquarterly.org/foundation-report). Boston: The Boston Foundation.
Urban Institute, NHC. (2016, July). Cost of Affordable Housing. From Urban.Org: https://apps.urban.org/features/cost-of-affordable-housing/
Urbane. (2022). Flatbush Central – Trust Transforms. Urbane. NEW YORK CITY METRO: thisisurbane.com. From https://thisisurbane.com/case-studies/flatbush-central
Adaptive Solution to the problem
After exercising reflection of our and community values, We were asked to repeat the exercise above with more community values in the mind, and with challenges to our own values.
https://shahzorkhan.wordpress.com/2024/03/16/exercise-challenging-your-values
My personal values to the problem were,
1. Self Sufficiency
2. Impactful Living
3. Justice and Peace
4. Supporting others
Focusing on the strongest opposition: the local community, and their representatives who adopt NIMBY ideologies, create restrictive zoning laws and higher building standards to restrict affordable development. Their behavior can be mapped to the following:
Fairness: current owners earned their place, and their homes and investments should be protected,
Sanctity: Current neighborhood, relations, and chosen amenities. There is a fear of values and habits of new neighbors (poorer/immigrants), including impact on their children’s values/lives when they go to the same school.
Loyalty: For representatives, loyalty to long standing values/ opposition to new houses keep these factors alive and harder to re- negotiate,
Which difficult realities exist in my challenge, how am I contributing to them, and how can I mobilize people to address them? (600-800 words)
The following realities exist simultaneously that need to be acknowledged:
- Life in Boston is constantly evolving, as more population demands development, expansion, and densification of existing communities that are closer to the downtown/economic area. Denser communities need better amenities, and more efficient use of limited public spaces.
- Zoning laws enforcing single-family homes with gardens and garages may not be optimal anymore. New entrants need viable affordable housing options close to work. Affordable housing subsidies are not a viable long-term solution to this problem.
- Denser population lead to higher traffic, busier streets, parking restrictions etc. More people need to adopt public transportation (E.g., bus/ metro(T), bike etc.), and the optimal allocation for these will change in the legacy roads and roadside parking.
- As an immigrant myself, new migrant population is changing face of Boston, with different values, and priorities. Many new migrants are temporary migrants till they find a permanent home for themselves and may have different engagement with the local community in their busy life.
- Migrant population may bring cheaper labor to replace or assist in existing jobs, making the job market remain disruptive. (E.g., Software engineers (me), Cheap/free Research assistants, low wage waiters etc.).
- Local companies need culturally, and economically diverse employees, and to compete globally.
- Diversity in schools is increasing, which brings experiences to kids dealing with complex issues.
- Life is unfair, and early property owners have early mover advantage, and will reap benefits of growing land prices. We need to acknowledge that privilege and try to keep fairness for both existing and new members.
- Representatives are responsible for taking tough decisions which may challenge loyalty to existing community norms and notions and change for benefiting new-comers, local businesses, and strive to find new sources of budgets, and invest in better amenities (schools, public spaces etc.) that will increase local job creation/opportunities.
- Academia, Advocacy groups and Press play a fundamental role in community engagement in difficult ideas, to elaborate academic jargon, diagnose political dilemmas and communicate actions available to public to engage in the discourse.
My position: As a member of migrant community, academia (Harvard/MIT), and advocacy groups (Mass Progressive Action Organizing Committee (MPAOC)), I intend to contribute to organization of stakeholder platforms with my academic organization, advocacy group and representatives of community (elected or informal), to deliberate the vision of the future within the “Productive Range of stress”.
By changing the narrative from defense of existing way of life (values) to an economic (bigger market) and social (diverse) opportunity to upgrade existing communities, we use adaptive leadership to bring the people together and energize them towards a new vision for the community and support continuous redevelopment.
Community Dialogue on Vision for the future:
To mobilize people, we need to challenge their existing societal norms and values. We need open and collaborative stakeholder platforms to engage to envision what future of Boston looks like, and to navigate through difficult conversations of population growth, changing lifestyles, planned locations of growth, and openly discuss community reservations, and engage with all stakeholders to openly ask what needs to be protected, what needs to be changed, and what needs to be re-negotiated later.
Academics, city planners and elected representatives need to collaborate with community spaces (colleges, community halls, online) to organize vision boards with best practices like HOV Lanes, Bus densities, new development areas, business districts etc. Many models of redevelopment exist that support partial redevelopment and improved vibrancy in communities. (Urbane, 2022) Inclusive neighborhood dialogues with instruments like community budgeting can give incentive to people to come together and engage to control the development and decision-making. Giving decisions in the hands of people and trusting them to engage with open mind and good faith can help them with the difficult process of renegotiating community values.
Shahzor's space 