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Nancy Solomon, managing editor of New Jersey Public Radio, and Douglas Massey, Princeton sociologist and author of many books including American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass, discuss affordable housing in New Jersey--40 years after the Mount Laurel decision.

Recap from It's a Free Country.

Welcome to Politics Bites, where every afternoon at It's A Free Country, we bring you the unmissable quotes from the morning's political conversations on WNYC. Today on the Brian Lehrer Show, Mitt Romney says if the safety net for the very poor needs repair, he'll fix it. Melissa Boteach, poverty expert and manager of the Half in Ten Campaign at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, offered suggestions on where to start.

Christine Quinn, speaker of the New York City Council, discusses the pilot program to turn vacant condos into affordable housing.  Rafael Cestero, commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, joins the conversation and discusses the pilot program as well as his tenure as HPD commissioner, which is coming to an end this week.

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On the Brian Lehrer Show today at 10:06 am.  Audio and a recap of this conversation will be posted here by 1pm.

Christine Quinn, speaker of the New York City Council, discusses the pilot program to turn vacant condos into affordable housing.  Rafael Cestero, Commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, joins the conversation and discusses the pilot program as well as his tenure as HPD commissioner, which is coming to an end this week.

The city has tapped a longtime Bloomberg administration official to lead the city's Department of Housing, Preservation and Development.

New York City has chosen a team of real estate developers to bring a 5,000-unit housing complex to Hunters Point South along the Queens waterfront — a project that officials said will be the largest affordable housing development since the 1970s when Co-op City in the Bronx and Starrett City in Brooklyn were completed.