How solar ‘skin' helped an Indiana homeowner win a fight for rooftop panels

For a megacity with more than 18 million people in its metro area, Mumbai, India is not a particularly vertical city. Many of its inhabitants squeeze into low-rise slums crammed into the urban space. But an ongoing slum rehabilitation program seeks to clear these corrugated metal shacks and relocate the slum-dwellers to new high rises.

The Queensbridge Houses, one of the nation's largest public housing projects, is celebrating more than one year without a shooting in what Mayor de Blasio called "a year of golden silence." Security measures such as the implementing of lights and cameras, combined with the creation of the 696 Queensbridge, a team of ex-convicts who patrol the area, has greatly reduced violence in the area.

Mitigating homelessness on Los Angeles' infamous "Skid Row" comprises myriad obstacles. But a collaboration between city officials, a USC architecture class project, and the Skid Row Housing Trust has responded with a multi-pronged solution in "pod-style" housing units. They have composed a cost-effective pre-fab design technology that eases their transportation, on-site construction and visual imposition on a neighborhood, while the pods' zoning classification as "congregant housing" minimizes the risk for local opposition to homeless support services on claims of structural or aesthetic noncompliance.

In Jackson, Mississippi, a series of community-led cooperatives are creating opportunities for affordable home ownership. This is part of a trend across the country to create community land trusts. They are financed through donations, other community businesses, or commissions. Though each land trust faces hurdles, they are collectively allowing more access to wealth and ownership in historically low-income neighborhoods.

When Cristo Rey St. Martin College Prep, one of a national network of work-study high schools, was looking to move out of an outdated building, an abandoned big box KMart caught administrators' eyes. Strapped by a tight budget, the school creatively transformed the suburban eye sore into a colorful cross between a corporate headquarters and a college campus. Inspired by the school's success, other network schools are looking into vacant factories and grocery stores as new homes.

Several large philanthropic organizations, like the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Ford Foundation, are pooling resources to address San Francisco's severe housing crisis. The funds will go to local non-profits who are buying up property to stabilize rent and to localities to establish rent-control and tenant protection policies. Known as Partnership for the Bay’s Future, the venture hopes to eventually ensure housing for 175,000 families over five years.

The focus on sound comes at a time when open kitchens and industrial hard-surface designs entice diners’ eyes, but might strain their ears.

California coastal towns address homelessness by supporting individuals who live on their boats - and those who want to move back to land. While many counties destroy or condemn boats that have been anchored long-term, areas like Half Moon Bay and Marin county work with individuals who want to find stable housing.

Grassroots organizations, like the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation, seek to preserve Chinatown’s heritage and fight the displacement of old-time residents by gentrification. The organizations bought an historic hotel to prevent displacement of 100 low-income residents, revitalized commercial spaces such as restaurants to preserve the neighborhood’s heritage and history, and funded programs to support social connections with events such as Majhong socials that bring together over 100 people. While the organizations agree on the goal to preserve Vancouver’s Chinatown, they sometimes disagree on how to get there

Old and neglected housing contributes to climate change because it runs on fossil fuels. In New York, outdated heating systems waste two-thirds of energy. The New York City Housing Authority is not only trying to create better, safer, livable affordable housing, but also cleaner and more sustainable housing. While the city is just beginning to explore how to do that, other cities, like Paris, have already begun the work of updating old buildings that are used for affordable housing and can offer a model for American cities.