A photo of tower style housing with lots of plants
Alt-Erlaa social housing in Vienna. (Credit: Daveness 98, Creative Commons)

In this podcast episode, Ray and I discuss the current proposed ballot initiative to create a public development authority (PDA) that would be tasked with constructing and owning mixed-income social housing in Seattle. It’s an ambitious plan modeled after social housing elsewhere in the world, notably Vienna, Austria, that was conceived of by the House Our Neighbors! coalition.

This podcast runs adjacent to the article I published on the subject, so if you are interested in exploring a new way to create permanently affordable, mixed-income, democratically governed, green, labor union built housing in Seattle, I recommend you check out both the article and podcast.

As always, you can find The Urbanist podcast on ITunes, Spotify, and other major platforms. Want to share a question or opinion with us? Reach out to us at podcast@theurbanist.org.

Article Author

Natalie Bicknell Argerious (she/her) is a reporter and podcast host at The Urbanist. She previously served as managing editor. A passionate urban explorer since childhood, she loves learning how to make cities more inclusive, vibrant, and environmentally resilient. You can often find her wandering around Seattle's Central District and Capitol Hill with her dogs and cat. Email her at natalie [at] theurbanist [dot] org.