It is a little known fact that manufactured housing—homes built in factories to meet the HUD Code, the only national building code in the world—represents the largest unsubsidized affordable housing stock in U.S. While efficient manufacturing reduces production costs and high-density, low impact development promotes smart growth, newer homes often outperform site-built housing in both quality and design. Almost 8 million families, with a median income of $29,000, reside in manufactured homes. And yet, with a few notable exceptions, affordable housing practitioners remain ignorant of, or are openly hostile toward, this housing stock—instead of embracing it as a potential solution to affordable housing challenges. George W. McCarthy, president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, will report on the work of a group of plucky social entrepreneurs who embarked on a Quixotic effort to transform the manufactured housing sector — and the unexpected results of their efforts to preserve and expand this essential component of the national affordable housing stock.

George W. McCarthy is president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. His areas of expertise include housing and housing finance, global urbanization, economic forecasting, program evaluation, and regional planning. Before leading the Lincoln Institute beginning in July 2014, he was director of Metropolitan Opportunity at the Ford Foundation, seeking to reduce the social and spatial isolation of poor and disadvantaged populations within metropolitan areas. Before that he administered a Ford Foundation program that focused on using homeownership to build wealth for low-income families and their communities. He has been a senior research associate at the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an associate professor of economics at Bard College, a resident scholar at the Jerome Levy Economics Institute, a visiting scholar and member of the High Table at King’s College of Cambridge University, a visiting scholar at the University of Naples, Italy, and a research associate at the Centre for Independent Social Research in St. Petersburg, Russia. He earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a master’s degree in economics from Duke University, and a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics from the University of Montana.

In recent years, the idea of vacant land has acquired great importance within the definition land policy. As housing programs require the use of vacant land, the demand for such land grows, resulting in elevated values that often make these programs unfeasible. This course, offered in Spanish, takes a closer look at alternatives for vacant land management in land policy.

The course, offered in Spanish, provides a space to discuss new theoretical perspectives and practical experiences that seek to challenge and overcome some weaknesses of traditional technocratic planning, and the need to make visible the state’s role in building the city and the impact that planning decisions have on land markets.

This week-long professional development course offers students the opportunity to assess and challenge their understanding of fundamental topics related to urban informality. Participants will examine tools on informal economic analysis, land markets and pricing, as well as the development of informal settlements in Latin American cities. Students will deepen their knowledge on different intervention tools and land tenure regularization processes by means of case studies from Latin America, the Caribbean and other regions.

Various countries have long used mechanisms to mobilize value increments as a fundamental component of urban policy in order to finance urban development, social housing, and public spaces, and also to conserve natural resources and heritage. This course, offered in Spanish, discusses the main instruments used in a variety of countries for the recovery/mobilization of value increment, assessing their objectives, scope, limitations and alternatives to finance urban projects.

In recent years, vacant land has developed a great influence within the realm of defining land policies. Housing programs require vacant land, yet with the increase in demand and the resulting increase in value of land, these programs become unfeasible. This course, offered in Spanish, aims to present alternatives for vacant land management during the creation of land policies, focusing on housing for low-income populations, on social facilities, on public space, and on large urban projects.

In this course, offered in Spanish, students discuss and debate new perspectives and practical experiences regarding land management planning while identifying weaknesses of more traditional systems. Topics covered also include the role of the State during urban construction and the impact that planning has on land markets.

Planners in industrialized countries have developed and disseminated a set of prescriptions to address informality. These prescriptions have been embraced by multilateral agencies and turned into public policies in Latin America. The objectives of this course are to present the basic features of the approaches underpinning current policies toward the informal city in Latin America and to explain their origins, central ideas and basic premises, emphasizing issues related to land policies. Specific requirements: The course is aimed at professionals who have participated or are participating in the implementation of policies against informal cities.

The video classes are multimedia treatments of diverse topics related to urban land policy. Developed to support both moderated and self-paced courses of the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean’s distance education, they are also well suited to generate discussion in neighborhood associations, professional associations, public entities and other groups interested in these topics. Videos are presented primarily in Spanish.