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Article
Our Pluralist Housing Ethics and the Struggle for Affordability
Wake Forest Law Review (2007)
  • Tim Iglesias
Abstract

Building on recent scholarship, this Article explores the five “housing ethics” that have historically shaped U.S. housing law and policy: (1) housing as an economic good, (2) housing as home, (3) housing as a human right, (4) housing as providing social order, and (5) housing as one land use in a functional system. The “housing ethic” framework brings all of America’s housing law and policy under one conceptual roof. The Article argues that each of these housing ethics is deeply embedded in American housing policy and law, and that none has ever achieved a complete hegemony, i.e., that coexistence and pluralism among the housing ethics is the norm. The Article examines the challenges and opportunities that our housingethic pluralism presents to the affordable housing movement. It identifies the “housing as one land use in a functionalsystem” ethic as the single most promising ethic to advance affordability.

Keywords
  • housing,
  • legal rights,
  • social norms,
  • affordability,
  • economic,
  • discrimination
Disciplines
Publication Date
April, 2007
Citation Information
Tim Iglesias. "Our Pluralist Housing Ethics and the Struggle for Affordability" Wake Forest Law Review Vol. 42 (2007)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/tim_iglesias/1/