Tech professor, author of Beltline study releases ‘Foreclosed!’
May 4, 2009 at 11:15 am by Thomas Wheatley in News
In late 2007, Georgia Tech professor Dan Immergluck released a study that added numbers to a sneaking suspicion: Property taxes were rising fast along the southern half of the Beltline, the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit planned to circle Atlanta’s urban core, and posing a problem for longtime residents unable to afford the uptick.
The study served as a reminder that for all its promises of parks, streetcars and smart-growth development, the Beltline could potentially cause displacement and gentrification — and have a negative impact on the neighborhoods the project is designed to help.
Immergluck’s followed up the study with Foreclosed!, a new book about the origins and aftershocks of the nationwide housing market meltdown.
The unfortunately timely Foreclosed explains the rise of high-risk lending and why these newer types of loans—and their associated regulatory infrastructure—failed in substantial ways. Dan Immergluck narrates the boom in subprime and exotic loans, recounting how financial innovations and deregulation facilitated excessive risk-taking, and how these loans have harmed different populations and communities.
After describing the development of generally stable and risk-limiting mortgage markets throughout much of the twentieth century, Foreclosed details how federal policy-makers failed to regulate the new high-risk lending markets that arose in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The book also examines federal, state, and local efforts to deal with the mortgage and foreclosure crisis of 2007 and 2008.
It also offers recommendations on how to prevent the same mistakes from happening again. Immergluck, one of those rare policy experts who can speak in terms nearly everyone can understand, has more than 20 years in housing policy and financial issues and is worth checking out. For more information about the book, visit Cornell University Press.
(Courtesy Cornell University Press)
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