The Cisneros perspective

“The improvements that HOPE VI has created in cities are dramatic,” says former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros. HOPE VI developments “may not be classical New Urbanism in every case, but they are uniformly better than what was there,” according to Cisneros, who now heads American City Vista, which develops housing in cities from Texas to California. Replacement of “poorly conceived” public housing by “smaller-scale townhouse complexes, some rental and some homeownership, with an attempt at mixed incomes, has been exactly what the community needed,” he says. New Urban News will feature an interview with Cisneros in the April/May issue.