Build Your Own House in the Old Ohana Style, Suzanne StewarJ, 1974 $7.50 from: The Hawaii Community Design Center 2480 Koa Ave., L-29 Honolulu, HI 96815 A good, simple, step-by-step guid_e for building a $7.50/sq. ft'. owner-built house house suitable for the Hawaiian climate. The design, unlike many "low cost" houses, feels comfortable. Good howto drawings include details for making doors, shutters and cabinets. Plans are also available. (TB) • ~OMMUNITV ) The Costs of Sprawl, R~al Estate Research Corporation, 1974: U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, DC 20402 Executive Summary (4111-00023) 55¢; Detailed Cost Analysis (4111-0021) $2.90; Literature Review & Bibliography (4111-0022) $3.25. Also summarized in Ekistics, Oct. 1975. Thoroughly . documents a wide range of costs for different patterns of community land use from low density single-family suburbs to high density compact planning. Covers capital, land, energy, pollution, water use and auto use costs for different options. Many costs are halved through compactness of land use. (TB) The Community Context ofEconomic Conversion, Barry Stein, \971, 63 pp., inquire for price: Center for Community Economic Development 1878 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02140 Explore the community Fpact of de- - fense contracts, absente9'_ownership, and industrial trends, such as the impact on Seattle, Boston and Southern California of depending on aerospace contracts for their main employment base. Presents excellent case for communityowned businesses. (TB) Nongrowth Planning Strategies, Earl Finkler and David Peterson, 1974, $13.50 from: • ' Praeger Publications 111 Fourth Ave. New York, NY 10003 A concise and right to the point study of growth control for communities. No one has yet dealt with real responsibilities of small regions .towards growth, but at least this covers what isn't happening at state and federal levels and why it is pragmatically necessary for communities to act. Analyzes economic costs of non-growth and explores a range of available mechanisms for at.: taining it. Things are moving fast in this area, but this is a good starting point. (TB) Rural Tribune Washington County Commupity Action Organization 546 E. Baseline Hillsboro, OR 97123 Free, published monthly. Met these folks at the Leap Year Conference, and, from all appearances, this is a community action agency at its best. They just helped set up a food co-op (Vital Vittles, 1235 E. Baseline, Hillsboro) and are thinking about an auto repair co-op and credit / nion. Also have a free foreign language translation service for help in courts, hospitals and social service agencies. The Rural Tribune, half of which is in Spanish, covers local Hillsboro news with a regular colu.mn by self-sufficiency farmer Glen Simmons and a swap section ("My rooster for your rabbit" and "Would like a woman to teach me guitar in trade for a hand-crocheted afghan"). I really enjoy reading it. Similar agencies . in other parts of the country might want to order a sample copy for ideas. (LdeM) Common Ground Cross Roads Resource Center 2314 Elliot Ave. So. Minneapolis, MN 55404 $4/yr.,.quarterly. This 64-page newsprint magazine is filled with information specific to the Twin Cities, most of which can apply anywhere. Hospital workers-on unionization, high rise and industrial development, and a good, clear "People's Guide to Home Insulation" and "Altern,ative Energy and Who's Doing It." Back issues ($1 each) on Neighborhood History, Parks and Open Space, Community Control, Controlling Neighborh·ood Development, Parade of Neighborhoods, and Art for Our Sake. (LdeM) May 1976 RAIN Page 11 Community Ownership in New Towns and Old Cities, Edward Kirshner and James Morey, 1975 from: Center for Community Economic Development 187 8 Mass~chusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02140 I really had trouble getting into this at first-it looked like it was going to be another socialistic tract about government ownership. I was wrong- it isn't, and it's good! A lot of really obvious stuff once you think about it-utilities are basically no-risk public monopolies. Public ones have a track record at least as good as investor-owned ones. In both cases the rate payers end up paying for the whole operation. So why should the profits go to outside investors·rather than back into reducing costs for the community? They show specifo::ally that if all the land, real estate development , and utilities were owned by the com- , munity (with revenues subsidizing housing) then up to 100% of new housing would be within the reach of low and moderate income families. They lay out a lot of options and the benefits of each-for new and e~isting communities, for common mortgages, financing remtal housing, leasing of greenbelt land for agriculture, community-owned industrial parks, businesses, utilities, cable TV. Returned profits reduce direct housing costs by 25-50%,· depending on options chosen, and incomes required to afford new housing would drop from $18,000 to $7,800 in some cases. Well worth reading. (TB) Continued on page 12
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