Affordable housing? Borrow a page from NYC

Looting in Britain’s cities, mass demonstrations in the Arab world, protests in Greece; none have the same possibility of a straightforward solution as does the recent uprising (largely of the middle class) in Israel in response to a lack of affordable housing. What began as a single person’s fight against eviction quickly became a mass movement from all sectors of Israeli society-Jewish and Arab – defenseless against housing costs that have skyrocketed by more than 40% in three years. And while pundits debate the underlying causes of Britain’s social unrest, experts hope that democracy will emerge triumphant in the Arab world, and everyone holds their breath that Europe’s debt crisis will be resolved; Israel’s affordable housing crisis can most certainly be fixed.