Managed and Whole Community Relocation

Introduction

In the spring of 2020, Dean Harriet Harris of the School of Architecture, Pratt Institute, asked Professor David Burney to lead a consortium of architects and urbanists-- mainly but not exclusively teaching at Pratt Institute--in an exploration of housing issues, with thought to where Pratt may have a positive impact on discourse within and especially outside of academia.

Over the past several months, the Consortium has been preoccupied with the broad issue of housing access and affordability in the United States of America. While this is and has been an ongoing concern among housing professionals, the current depth of this crisis, exacerbated by increasing income inequality, a steep decline in housing production, the pandemic, and climate change -- particularly with respect to rising sea levels and flood hazard -- provokes a greater sense of urgency. Also, there is the hope that . political change at both the federal and local levels might bring about a political climate in which solutions could be implemented. The Consortium held a symposium in late 2020 bringing together a variety of housing experts to discuss the best way to propose, and to advocate for, housing solutions. After the symposium five sub-groups began independent discussion of some major themes that arose in the symposium:

Fundamentals- the Right to Housing

Decarbonization and new housing models and typologies Managed Community “Climigration” Process and Policies for Planned Retreat and Repositioning Desegregation, Financing, Implementation

What follows are policy papers that emerged from each of these five sub-groups. While there is overlap between them, it seems helpful to focus on each separately as they invoke different solutions. Over the next months the Consortium will begin looking for opportunities to promote these proposals and have them adopted at the federal and local level, as well as for ways in which the thinking and unresolved issues raised in this ‘white paper’ might be reflected in the school’s own research and pedagogy, to deepen knowledge and prepare future professionals for the times to come.