This post kicks off a month-long series that our colleagues at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation are doing on affordable housing as a challenge to the health of American democracy, and in particular local democracy in the United States. The series, edited by Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor Quinton Mayne, is part of the Ash Center’s Challenges to Democracy series, a two-year public dialogue inviting leaders in thought and practice to name our greatest challenges and explore promising solutions.Over the past two years, the Ash Center has welcomed leading experts from across the country to debate the structural weaknesses preventing the United States from achieving its democratic potential. Democracy demands an equal right of participation; but as the Challenges to Democracy public dialogue series has shown, the formal design and practical workings of America’s political institutions are preventing the full realization of participatory equality. Some of the key challenges covered in our series to date include the erosion of voting rights and access, the decline of social movements, and the integration of immigrants into political life.In addition to metrics of participation related to voice and input, democracy can also be judged by its outputs.
Source: Housing Perspectives (from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies)
