Episode 2029: How to House America?
How to deal the American crisis of homelessness? Late last year, Kevin Adler, the San Francisco based homeless activist and author of When We Walk By, came on the show to argue that we should all personally interact with the unhoused. Alexander Gorlin, an award winning architect, and Victoria Newhouse, an architectural historian, look at the problem in a more traditionally top-down manner. Co-editors of the new Housing the Nation: Social Equity, Architecture and the Future of Affordable Housing, their focus is on building more affordable homes for the unhoused, financed both through the public and private sectors. In contrast with Kevin Adler, who wants us to befriend the homeless, the upperclass Manhattanites Gorlin and Newhouse see the solution in conventionally political rather than personal terms. Neither of them see the problem as one of the American capitalist system itself which might not be surprising since they are both products and beneficiaries of this system.
Alexander Gorlin is an architect, scholar, critic, and a leader in the design of affordable housing. Alexander Gorlin Architects are the recipients of the 2023 Best Downstate Residence of the Year award from the New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH).Victoria Newhouse is author of Rizzoli’s Parks of the 21st Century: Reinvented Landscapes, Reclaimed Territories.
Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.
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