On May 31 the Greenwich Retired Men’s Association will feature a talk by Howard Husock, VP for policy research at the Manhattan Institute and Senior Fellow in Domestic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute where he focuses on municipal government, urban housing policy, civil society and philanthropy, on his new book: “The Poor Side of Town: And Why We Need It”
The talk is May 31, at 11:00am sharp at the First Presbyterian Church, 37 Lafayette Place, Greenwich.
This program will also be shown on webinar: CLICK HERE
Mr. Husock’s book is a critique of more than a century of housing reform policies, including public and other subsidized housing as well as exclusionary zoning, with the idea that simple low-cost housing helps those of modest means build financial assets and join in the democratic process.
It is more of a historical narrative than a straight policy book, however—telling stories of Jacob Riis, zoning reformer, Lawrence Veiller, anti-reformer Jane Jacobs, housing developer William Levitt, and African American small homes advocate Reverend Johnny Ray Youngblood, as well as first-person accounts of onetime residents of neighborhoods such as Detroit’s Black Bottom who lost their homes and businesses to housing reform and urban renewal.
This is a book with important policy implications—built on powerful, personal stories.Howard Husock will discuss individuals and institutions and the most effective ways to address poverty and narrow the widening gap between rich and poor in America–a gap that he feels is a grave threat to American democracy. He presents preventive strategies that he believes will be more effective than the billions of American tax dollars going into the vast array of government programs targeting various social issues.
Mr. Husock is Senior Fellow, Contributing Editor, City Journal, Manhattan Institute. He is the author of Who Killed Civil Society? The Rise of Big Government and the Decline of Bourgeois Norms and Philanthropy Under Fire. As a longtime print and television journalist and documentary filmmaker, his work for WGBH, Boston won three Emmys.
In 1987–2006 he served as director of case studies in public policy and management at the Harvard Kennedy School. He was a member of the board of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (2013–18).
He is a Graduate of the Boston University College of Communication and was amid-career fellow at Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.