Justice
Can a Game Help Build Affordable Housing?
To break through gridlock on fair housing, officials in wealthy Westchester County, New York, try a new tactic.
Real-estate experts and affordable housing advocates in two towns gathered not long ago to play pretend with plastic blocks.
This new way of considering development possibilities is no retreat into playtime, though. Its proponents call it a reset that can break old stalemates. The usual mix of zoning codes, environmental cleanup rules, and local skepticism triggers delays and lawsuits and inequities that leave officials in America’s “bedroom communities” sleepless. Development proposals move in stages, at stagey public meetings.