Through Change.gov, the public is being offered a first-ever opportunity to peek inside and offer opinion on nearly the entire transition process. A large team of academics, former bureacrats, and leading advocates have been appointed by President-Elect Obama to vet possible cabinet-level officials and conduct a thorough review of every federal bureaucracy they might lead.

Nine of these folks have been tasked with a review of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The HUD review leads are Xavier de Souza Briggs of MIT, Roberta Achtenberg, and Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institute ; team members include Ingrid Ellen of NYU, Nicholas Retsinas of Harvard’s Joint Center on Housing Studies, Henry Fernandez of the Center for American Progress, Saul Ramirez, Jr. of NAHRO, Kenneth Zimmerman of Lowenstein Sander, and Robert Weissbourd of RW Ventures.

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