donovan to HUD

As you've likely heard by now: Barack Obama has nominated Shaun Donovan, present head of NYC HPD, as his Secretary of Housing & Urban Development. Now I know ShaunDon wasn't on my wishlist of potential HUD nominees [posted in the comments section of one of Nick Kristof's posts from last month), but it should be noted for the record that this Progressive Reactionary did politely suggest hiring an architect to head up HUD—a position unknown to most but that could loosely be defined as supervising the American built environment. And while ShaunDon is not really a practicing architect, he was indeed trained as one, so I suppose that's close enough. [As if my insane suggestion of Michael Sorkin ever had a chance...] The mere fact that he doesn't come from the development side of things, that he has in large part dedicated his career to public investment in housing and urban issues—this alone should ease our nerves, even just a little. Here's hoping that the new HUD chief will heed the call to bring more architects and planners into the fold with regard to housing construction and urban growth.

It's an exciting time, seeing all these cabinet appointments come to light. But my word, what a lot of work there is to be done.