Shannon: Housing subsidy

In our class Housing and the Community, Shannon - our professor, mentioned that the biggest subsidy to the housing market is not to the poor, which is how most of us perceive subsidy: Public/social/affordable housing for the poor, who get 'massive' discounts on their living expenses. Most of the times the US provides vouchers to poor renters to pay for the remainder of cost over 30% of the renter's income. 30% of income is the 'affordable' price for housing. 

Contrary to this belief that most housing subsidy goes to the impoverished population, Shannon informed us that the mortgage repayment tax breaks for home-buyers are by far the biggest federal housing subsidy. It makes sense if the majority of the population in the United States lives in single family housing and they get a mortgage to buy it, they will get an income tax break for that mortgage. 

Maquilladoras, Mexico

"Most worked eight to twelve hour days, doing difficult or dangerous manual labor, and still find it a great hardship to afford the tuition, uniforms, and supplies their children needed to go to school.  The women estimated that only twenty percent of the children in their settlement finish high school, most choosing instead to go to work.  Many deal every day with chemicals or dangerous machinery, and are provided little to no protective gear."

" The Maquiladoras in Mexico are taking part in what has become a common practice among transnational corporations around the world: the global assembly line.  This is the concept that regardless of where a company is rooted, it will move its production to the country with the cheapest labor and the most relaxed environmental laws.  If the wages are raised or the environmental standards begin to rise to expensive levels, they will just pick up and leave.  This makes the raising of wages very difficult.  These companies give a little bit of work to a desperate country, but the jobs they give do not lead to promotions as jobs in the U.S. do.  They are not stepping stones.  The poor are staying poor no matter how hard they work, which means that they have no money to put into the economy, and no way to build a middle class.  If the Maquiladora workers fight for wage increases are successful, it may mean the retreating of these companies from Mexico.  But if they do not demand a living wage now, where will their children find themselves?"

source:
Amanda Flore
April, 2010
amandafiore.com/articles

maquilladoras

The presentation at University of Toronto talks about the rise and fall of Maquilladoras on the Mexican side of the U.S. - Mexico border twin cities. The Maquilladoras are a result of NAFTA agreement. US and European companies essentially exploit the cheap labor in Mexico similarly to FDI (foreign direct investment) strategies. The only value added on the price of the products assembled in Mexico is the labor cost. In early 2000s the Maquilladoras could not compete with even cheaper labor in Asia and companies relocated their assemblies there. These days the presentation says we are seeing a reversal of the trend with higher shipping prices.
Hallelujah.
zero oil will save us one day.
 


source:
Juan Robles
http://infranetlab.org/blog/border-economies-maquiladora-export-landscape

"The 1982 peso devaluation crippled the Valley economy. By contrast, the 1994 devaluation barely slowed economic growth. The reason was a more diversified economy. Tourism, manufacturing, supply manufacturing and health care now complement agriculture. Retail sales in Texas cities bounced back strongly from the peso collapse, rising by $300m in 1996 to $5.5 billion. "Everyone's got a theme park. We ain't got a theme park," explained one Valley politician; "Mexico's our theme park.""

"Since the coming of NAFTA, foreign companies including BMW, Sony and Matsushita have set up maquiladoras in Reynosa and Matamoros. In turn, smaller supply companies have grown up in McAllen and Harlingen, where land is cheaper."

"McAllen (slogan: "It's Naftastic!") is the third-fastest-growing city in the United States and one of the cheapest in which to do business. Despite a 7% job-growth rate, unemployment runs at 16%. The city has concentrated on education and infrastructure to improve its prospects. The South Texas Community College has grown from 600 to 6,000 students in three years, and the city offers to train employees for companies coming in. The Texas State Technical College in Harlingen serves a similar purpose. The University of Texas Pan-Am in Edinburg ("Taco-Tech"), has seen enrolment grow by 400% since 1987. The region's cities on the American side are fiercely competitive for federal dollars; there are, for example, five international airports in a 50-mile radius. But they are trying to work together. Recently, they have combined to try to attract major-league baseball clubs for spring training. Officials are co-operating to bring I-69, the proposed Montreal-Mexico City freeway, through the Valley, a case strengthened by the fact that the region remains the largest urban area in the United States without an interstate highway. There is talk of consolidating cities on both sides into a single metropolitan sprawl known as "Borderplex"."

source:
http://www.uwec.edu/geography/ivogeler/w188/articles/txmx.htm
1997 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All Rights Reserved

Maquilladoras

"Over 11,500 Maquiladoras, Spanish for U.S.-owned and -operated assembly factories in Mexico, are located along the 2,100 mile border with the United States. Tijuana, at the western end of the U.S.-Mexican border, alone has 4,000Maquiladoras, employing nearly 1 million workers and producing goods whose value-added was over $7 billion a year in 1998. The importance of these products  -- almost half consisted of textiles and consumer electronics -- were only second to oil in the Mexican economy."

"Many factories (over 300 in just two years, 2002-2003) that located in Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s for low wages are in 2003 relocating to Asia. An entry-level machine operator in Juarez makes $8 a day while the same job in a Chinese factory fetches only $2. And in China there are no unions, whereas there are in Mexico. The World Trade Organization regulates global trade but only as it affects the interests of investors and manufactures, not of workers and the environment."


source:
http://www.uwec.edu/geography/ivogeler/w188/border/maquil.htm

" Another factor that resulted in increased Mexican immigration was the maquiladora. A 
maquiladora is a “Mexican manufacturing or assembly plant owned or sponsored by a foreign 
country” (Williams, 2002). Under the maquiladora program, materials and equipment are 
imported duty-free for assembly or manufacturing provided that they are re-exported. The 
receiving company then pays a small value-added tariff equivalent to the computed value of the 
work done in the maquiladora (Williams, 2002). Given the low wages paid in Mexican factories, 
this arrangement proved to be quite profitable for American companies. The maquiladora 
program also proved beneficial to Mexico and her citizens as it created millions of jobs (source: 

http://www.maquilaportal.com). "


" Ward et al. (2004) have investigated the relationship between land and housing market performance and lot title regularization in several colonias outside Rio Grande City, Starr County, Texas. Specifically, these researchers investigated the effect on land prices of a title regularization initiative to clear property titles of very poor households as an intervention implemented by the Community Resources Group (CRG) Receivership Program. The CRG is a non-governmental organization commissioned by the State of Texas to undertake title regularization in 15 colonias outside Rio Grande City. For their study, the authors formed two sample groups. A “study group” which consisted of those families who had no titles or who had experienced major difficulties associated with their titles or residence and who ultimately received titles as a result of the CRG intervention. Also, the researchers formed a “control group” consisting of resident households who had not experienced serious title problems and, therefore, were not affected by the CRG intervention. The researchers found that the provision of formal property titles as part of a policy to regularize land titles appears to have an insignificant influence upon market performance or upon land prices. Instead, it is sweat equity (sweat equity is the contribution made to a project by people who contribute their time and effort), resulting in housing improvement, that raises the property value and which gives rise to some equity creation and to potential wealth creation for the lot purchaser. "

source: 

FRANK MARTINEZ III, M.A.

Las colonias de la frontera: A study of substandard housing settlements along the Texas-Mexico border

Dissertation describes the history of Mexican immigration from the 19th century through to the Bracero program, the differences between colonias in the states that border Mexico and the history of policies that shaped the proliferation of colonias. 

Migration and Development Within and Across Borders: Research and Policy Perspectives on Internal and International Migration

https://s3.amazonaws.com/ssrc-cdn1/crmuploads/new_publication_3/%7BBA021F89-2446-DE11-AFAC-001CC477EC70%7D.pdf

Hans Rosling: TED 2006, data visualisation

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

Q Ideas for the common good

http://www.qideas.org/cities/

similar to TED Ideas worth spreading

Smartphone controlled paper air plane

http://mashable.com/2013/11/30/paper-airplane-smartphone/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

Algae

http://www.algalturfscrubber.com/

Tiny house, US

http://www.viralnova.com/tiny-house/

Light pollution in the US

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/let-there-be-night/278070/

20 dollars air conditioner

http://www.thestar.com/news/2013/07/16/the_20_air_conditioner.html

City plot - city gardens in NY

http://cityplot.org/apply-now-for-funded-cityplot-workshops-and-trainings/

Poem on immigration maths in the UK

http://www.upworthy.com/next-time-someone-tells-you-that-immigrants-are-destroying-our-country-show-them-this?g=2

Suburbia by CASS student

http://www.thecass.com/news-events/2013/december/riba-presidents-medals-cass

Jostein Gaarder: Sophie's World

a novel covering history of philosophy from Socrates to Sartre on a background of a story of a 14 year old girl.
Philosophy for general public kind of book.

Vunka said I must read.

COOPERATIVES promoted by USDA

http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/SupportDocuments/rdRuralCoop_Sept_Oct13Vr_Web.pdf

newsletter of US Department of Agriculture summarising progress of agricultural cooperatives in 2013 in rural America.

Cooperatives might just be the way to go forward in rural colonias.

alternative energy

http://mashable.com/2013/12/10/alternative-energy-products/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link#gallery/gadgets-powered-by-unusual-means/52a6e715b589e42bf5002074

Peter Lang in Barbican

http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/whats-on.asp?t=future

PC from scratch

http://mashable.com/2013/11/24/kano-computer-kit/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

Shermeen's blog

http://yousifshermeen.blogspot.com/

Wei Yan's class:
http://faculty.arch.tamu.edu/wyan/ARCH689/students.html

Richard Feynman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9tanx_0pqQ

lean construction - games

Zofia Rybkowski described that as part of lean construction course she runs an assignment to create a game. As an example she mentioned one of the students' designed games:
Everyone gets given a letter size piece of paper and is told to make a paper plane in three minutes. Follows a competition and which plane flies the furthest is the winner. The winner then teaches everyone how s/he built her/his plane and round two of building/testing is on. Then the best few get to share their techniques. The cycle goes on.
The result is that everyone in the group progresses, everyone becomes quite confident and no-one in the team/company gets fired.

This is such a clever idea.
I like it so much better than just pure capitalist competition.

I do wonder whether this can work in the colonias and how.

Housing and the Democratic Ideal: The Life and Thought of Charles Abrams

A. Scott Henderson

Housing and the Democratic Ideal is the only comprehensive work on Charles Abrams to date. Though structured as a narrative biography, this book also uses Abrams's experiences as a lens through which we can better understand the development of American social policy and state expansion during the twentieth century. In his left-leaning critique of centrist liberalism, Abrams took aim at the use of fiscal and monetary policies to achieve social objectives—a practice that allowed business interests to maximize private profits at the expense of public benefits. His growing concern over racial discrimination prefigured its emergence as a highly contested aspect of the American state.

http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-11950-4/

immigration hackathon

I wonder whether a hackathon in Las Lomas with planners, transport engineers, construction scientists,
urban designers, lawyers, etc. would be just the thing to do.
Or perhaps do hackathons work when there is a specific issue - like immigration and a specific tool - online/tech and the convergence of what the two have to offer is the most fruitful.

people with first hand experience on one side - people with skills to create apps and websites on the other.
So the hackers provide a public space where the 'clients' can make themselves visible and support their cause by lobbying the right people.

Does this encourage illegal immigration? When the invitees were undocumented immigrants?
Are the state boundaries essentially illegal?

This is an event organized by private firm.
How will the government respond? Can it 'regulate' events like this?

Would this be handy for colonias?





http://mashable.com/2013/11/22/hackathon-for-immigration-reform/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

It is hour 22 of a 24-hour hackathon, where coders join together to build new products and programs from scratch in a short amount of time. The scene is not uncommon in Silicon Valley. Every startup and tech company worth its weight in code has hosted at least one internal hackathon. (LinkedIn, for example, has a company-wide one every month.)

But the scene in building No. 3 is different. Many of the coders are undocumented immigrants, and the projects they are working on could very well change their lives.

LinkedIn played host to the first known DREAMer Hackathon on Thursday, bringing together 20 to 25 undocumented immigrants to join Silicon Valley tech veterans in a quest to further immigration reform. The teams created projects like websites and apps, some meant to educate citizens about immigration issues, others meant to connect constituents with the congressional leaders who represent them. (A few actually do both.)

Roaming the Boundaries: The Less Explored Roles of Architects in the Low-Income Settlements of Texas.

CARLOS A. REIMERS

The Catholic University of America

Roaming the Boundaries: The Less Explored Roles of Architects in the Low-Income Settlements of Texas.

- colonias are periurban settlements

- extra legal development

- architecture and low-income housing - in US: contemporary efforts date back to work of 

Charles Abrams: 

1. Legendary urban planner, policy maker
2. A. Scott Henderson: Housing and the Democratic Ideal: The Life and Thought of Charles Abrams
3. http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-11950-4/
4. book on social policy and state expansion in the early 20th Century U.S. 

Oil production in America - example of brilliant infographic

http://www.oilposter.org/images/oil-age-2010-ve-xlg-outlined.jpg

Urban observatory

http://www.urbanobservatory.org/compare/index.html

comparison of cities' maps including land-use, transport, and other indicators.

d3 infographics

https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/Gallery

a gallery of open source codes for animated, interactive data visualisation tools and graphs.

Houston Endowement

http://www.houstonendowment.org/GrantGuidelines/ApplicationTypes.aspx

Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/

Carl Sagan - podcasts of American Museum of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History holds a series of podcasts about science. 

http://www.amnh.org/podcast/snc/

The particular podcast I listened to was 1hr and 22 minutes long and was about the approach of Peter Sagan to science and religion and the overlaps, differences and Carl's overall opinions on the topic of god, God and science. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan

It is a fascinating, gentle and calm discussion of Carl's former colleague, wife and the moderator. They manage to portray Carl's own position, the way he argued for it and the way he would answer to classic rebuttals. His thesis was that intelligent design (new name for creationism) is not correct, however that the science itself - in its mere 4000 years of studying the Earth - is perhaps as close to some Truth about the cosmos as is religion. The difference is that science does not claim it knows the unknown, where else most religions do.

Microcredit for Americans

Microcredit for Americans

New York Times

By SHAILA DEWAN

Published: October 28, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/business/microcredit-for-americans.html?pagewanted=1&pagewanted=all&utm_source=General+Database&utm_campaign=3eb82292d9-NY_Times_Exclusive_110_29_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c4656e16a9-3eb82292d9-50745533&_r=0

Colonias program promotoras help Socorro flooding victims

Colonias program promotoras help Socorro flooding victims

The Texas A&M Colonias Program came to the aid of flood-stricken West Texans last September when heavy rain and rising water drove many colonia residents in Socorro, a suburb of El Paso, from their homes.

The local community center, operated by the Colonias Program and the city of Socorro, was transformed into an emergency operations center, and the program’s community workers, known as promotoras, were dispersed around the community to check on residents threatened by the floodwaters. 

http://one.arch.tamu.edu/news/2013/10/29/colonias-program-promotoras-help-socorro-flooding-victims/

Colonias and Public Policy in Texas and Mexico Urbanization by Stealth

Peter Ward: 
Colonias and Public Policy in Texas and Mexico Urbanization by Stealth 


This book is about the phenomenon of colonias in Texas and in northern Mexican border states. While the focus is upon the Texas-Mexico border, the findings will bear scrutiny in all of the border states, given that throughout the border region colonias are important low-income housing areas, the principal characteristics of which are cheaply acquired land, inadequate infrastructure, and self-help dwelling construction. But despite the enormous social costs associated with living and raising a family under these conditions, colonias are home for a large number of people—indeed, in Mexico, for the majority of the population in many cities. Fortunately, the physical conditions in colonias improve over time. They are, in the words of one author, "Slums of hope" (Lloyd 1979), such that between fifteen and twenty years after their establishment they have often become integrated working-class districts with paved roads, services installed, and consolidated dwellings, many with two stories. They are, then, both a problem and a solution—at least if one takes a long-term perspective (Mangin 1967). 


http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/warcol

FREE TRADE AND THE ENVIRONMENT: A CASE STUDY OF THE TEXAS COLONIAS

F. Andrew Schoolmaster:
FREE TRADE AND THE ENVIRONMENT:
A CASE STUDY OF THE TEXAS COLONIAS

Department of Geography
University of North Texas

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1131&context=greatplainsresearch

Dell Innovation Challenge

Social venture competition organized by University of Texas.

http://www.dellchallenge.org/

New Institute at Berkeley

New Institute for Business and Social Impact launched at Berkeley. 
http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/IBSI/



Research will also be an important aspect of the institute’s role, galvanizing the Haas faculty’s thought leadership in areas ranging from corporate social responsibility and multi-sector leadership to fraud, corruption, and ethics; environmental governance; poverty; health efficacy; gender parity; and more. The institute will house several of the school’s current centers and programs that already provide courses, activities, and research spanning the for-profit, nonprofit, and public sectors. They include: The Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership, which works with organizations whose mission is to improve social and environmental sustainability. The Center for Responsible Business, which integrates social and environmental goals into the business models of for-profit enterprises. The Graduate Program in Health Management, which trains students for the future of health finance, health systems, and new innovations in health care. The Haas Global Social Venture Competition, which is the nation’s largest student-run competition for approaches to social and environmental challenges. The Institute is also launching an initiative on the impact of women on business and the economy. Through classes, applied research, a speakers' series, and seminars with leading executives, this program will explore strategies to foster the advancement of women in corporate management, entrepreneurship and nonprofit leadership. 


source: 
http://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/article/berkeley-haas-boost-its-efforts-creating-social-and-environmental-impact-vibrant-hub?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffere81ba&utm_medium=twitter

Global Social Venture Competition

UC Berkeley



http://www.gsvc.org/finalists_winners/gsvc_winners/

Field Experiments

Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy M. Weinstein:
Field Experiments and the Political Economy of Development

http://www.columbia.edu/~mh2245/papers1/HW_ARPS09.pdf



Esther Duflo
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(Department of Economics and Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab)
BREAD, CEPR, NBER
January 2006

Field Experiments in Development Economics

http://economics.mit.edu/files/800


Field Experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_experiment

Super-Awesome Sylvia - 11 yo maker

A maker, tinkerer and online celebrity, Sylvia Todd has attracted more than a million views on YouTube of the show she produces and hosts, called “Sylvia’s Super-Awesome Maker Show.” Not bad reach for an 11-year-old.

Published: April 23, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/04/23/science/super-awesome-sylvia-video-grid.html?ref=science#index

Arduino - open platform

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.




http://arduino.cc/

Texas Development Water Board

The Texas Water Development Board offers grants to any person(s) or political subdivision(s) of the State of Texas for water research that addresses one of the Texas Water Development Board's research topics published in the recent Request For Proposals.  The Board defines research to be scientific activities that are undertaken to address practical problems rather than to expand the frontiers of knowledge.

Financing of the Water Research Program is through the TWDB's Research and Planning Fund.

http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/financial/programs/WRG/index.asp



The priority research topic for fiscal year 2013 funding is listed below as it appeared in the 
Request for Statements of Qualifications. Detailed information on this topic in the Request for 
Statements of Qualifications is included in Attachment A. 

• Testing water quality in a municipal wastewater effluent treated to drinking water 
standards. 

http://www.twdb.texas.gov/board/2013/08/Board/Brd25.pdf

Steven A. Moore: Technology and Place - Sustainable Architecture and the Blueprint Farm

In this book, Steven Moore demonstrates how the various stakeholders' competing definitions of "sustainability," "technology," and "place" ultimately doomed an experimental agricultural project designed to benefit farm workers displaced by the industrialization of agriculture in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. 


http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/mootec

bordercoalition.org

The Border Low Income Housing Coalition (BLIHC) is a grassroots coalition that responds to the severely substandard conditions found in colonias along the Texas-Mexico border. It consists of 350 low-income border residents, housing providers, advocates, government officials, and lenders, united in the pursuit of socially and economically just community development policies. 
The Coalition is led by colonia residents, who have experienced first-hand the unnecessary suffering in border communities that lack basic infrastructure such as water, wastewater, electricity and sewage services. The BLIHC is devoted to the belief that through a unified coalition of border residents, change is possible.

The BLIHC has a history of successfully challenging the State of Texas and its elected officials to improve living conditions in border colonias. Since it’s founding in 1993, the BLIHC has secured the allocation of over $50 million in public funds and has played a pivotal role in reforming the State’s housing agency.

The BLIHC devotes itself on an array of community development issues, including housing, infrastructure, water quality, public health, and democratic, accountable governance. Gloria Romo, the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service’s (TxLIHIS) community organizer, is striving to reorganize the BLIHC through her organizing efforts in Laredo-area colonias. From our office in Austin, TxLIHIS is making the Coalition’s work accessible to the public, press, and policy-makers.
This website tells the story of the Border Coalition: of its meager beginnings, its challenges, its astounding victories, and its outlook for the future.

(2005)

source:
http://www.bordercoalition.org/page9/page9.html

Freakonomics podcast

http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/03/how-to-think-about-money-choose-your-hometown-and-buy-an-electric-toothbrush-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

Attorney General - Colonias prevention

The Office of the Attorney General has enforcement responsibilities under several of these laws. To assist the public and governmental agencies in understanding and following these laws, the Office of the Attorney General has compiled them into a booklet and developed assorted materials to explain them.

Texas laws intended to prevent colonias take a variety of forms and apply in a variety of circumstances. The Texas Legislature has refined these laws during the past 15 years. Some of the major laws apply only in the border area or in "economically distressed" counties with high unemployment and low per capita income.

The laws have four major thrusts:

(1) requiring subdividers to provide basic infrastructure (water, sewer, roads, and drainage) when creating (or "platting") new residential developments,
(2) restricting the advertising and selling of lots that are not platted or that lack water and sewer,
(3) limiting connections to utilities in substandard areas, and
(4) mandating certain disclosures and protections when lots are sold through contracts for deeds.

https://www.oag.state.tx.us/agency/weeklyag/2010/0410colonia.pdf


source:
https://www.oag.state.tx.us/consumer/border/colonias.shtml

Attorney General - colonias map

https://maps.oag.state.tx.us/colgeog/colgeog_online.html#app=a527&1d99-selectedIndex=1