News

Cooperative housing facing the financial and housing crises

Published in Thursday June 6th, 2013 In Social movement news

Faced with the growing power of real estate speculation at international level, whose effects have been felt particularly in the USA and a good number of European countries, particularly in Southern Europe, the international meetings in Lyon, France (UCLy- 5 July 2013), propose to make a start on developing a comparison (and not an opposition) between the Latin and Anglo-Saxon models arising from social cooperation and their application in the area of affordable housing: the “Community Land Trust” representing the Anglo-Saxon model and “Latin cooperatives” of inhabitants as the Latin model.

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The Death and Life of Chicago

Published in Tuesday June 4th, 2013 In In the media

On a 100-degree day last summer, on Chicago’s southernmost edge, Willie Fleming, who goes by J. R. (“It stands for Just Righteousness”), crept up to an abandoned ranch house shrouded in overgrown weeds. The overwhelmingly poor and black neighborhood sits beside a 150-acre, 1,500-unit public-housing complex and is about as far — literally and figuratively — from the Loop as you can get and still be in Chicago. Nearly a quarter of the homes in the area had been empty for at least two years.

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Security of Tenure Project: know more on the African consultation

Published in Tuesday June 4th, 2013 In News on the Rapporteurs

The Special Rapporteur conducted a consultation, between May 27 and 28, in Johannesburg, on security of tenure for the urban poor in the African continent.

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Turkey’s building boom unrest conceals fear of corruption

Published in Monday June 3rd, 2013 In In the media

The protests triggered in Turkey by plans to redevelop a park into a shopping mall at first seem an unlikely cause for public anger. In reality, the demonstrations over Taksim Square’s Gezi Park go to the very heart of Turkey’s modern discontents.

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Horto Resists: Historic Community in Jardim Botânico Fights to Remain

Published in Monday June 3rd, 2013 In Social movement news

As the rain started to pour on Tuesday evening, May 28th, around 80 residents from the Horto community protested at the gates of Rio’s Jardim Botânico (Botanical Gardens) where the opening of world famous photographer Sebastião Salgado’s latest exhibition was taking place. Undeterred by the ensuing downpour, residents and supporters banged drums and held their banners high. “To brand as invaders the people who built this park is inhuman” read one held at the entrance to the famous visitor attraction.

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Deadly Storms in Oklahoma Bring Flooding and More Tornadoes

Published in Monday June 3rd, 2013 In In the media

Twelve days after a tornado killed 24 people and destroyed hundreds of homes, this battered city and its surrounding suburbs awoke Saturday morning to the aftermath of Round 2. A storm on Friday set off tornadoes and severe flooding, causing widespread damage around the region and claiming at least nine victims, including two children.

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A Housing Solution Gone Awry

Published in Monday June 3rd, 2013 In Opinion

In the early 1970s, the architect and city planner Oscar Newman came forth with a book and theory called “Defensible Space,” which relied in part on data from New York City public housing to propose a set of design solutions to the mounting problems of urban living.

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Migration is expulsion by another name in world of foreign land deals

Published in Wednesday May 29th, 2013 In In the media

Though the acquisition of land by foreign governments and firms is a centuries old process in much of the world, we can detect specific phases in these long and diverse histories.

Experiences for strengthening security of tenure discussed during a consultation in Quito, Ecuador

Published in Tuesday May 28th, 2013 In Collection

On May 11, the Special Rapporteur promoted in Quito a consultation a consultation on the main land policy experiences and planning instruments in Latin America aimed at strengthening security of tenure.

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Slum upgrade: Experts call for more stakeholders participation

Published in Monday May 27th, 2013 In In the media

Urban renewal or slum upgrade has for sometime been a major preoccupation of the Lagos State Government as part of the process of making the state a mega city of repute.

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