But that's the part that would address the most urgent need, and thus the reason why advocates for our low-income neighbors are correct to jump up and down until the council gets this part right.

Overall, the draft policy available for perusal on the city's Web site (http://www.ci.slc.ut.us/council/agendas/2005reports/December/121305A3C4.pdf) has much to commend it.

It worries about the loss of housing stock to oozing commercial hegemony. It encourages mixed-use and transit-oriented projects that maximize the use of expensive land and minimize the use of expensive autos and gasoline. It sees that the city's planning and zoning decisions, as well as the more direct financial aid the city might offer, influence the gain or loss of housing of all types.

But we share the concern of those who advocate for, and rent to, lower-income families when they say that the proposed city policy lacks the necessary focus of meeting the need for more of the kinds of abodes that singles, single parents, young families and retirees can afford.

For the same reason that automakers have pushed high-end, and high-profit, SUVs over lower-margin economy cars, many real estate developers have put their efforts into the higher-profit business of building larger, and more remote, single-family homes.

That should lead to the logical conclusion that the city's responsibility is to do what the marketplace cannot, or will not, do and prime the pump of affordable housing. Instead, by worrying too much about clustering low-income residences in a few neighborhoods, the draft policy represents itself as a balanced approach to encouraging all varieties of housing.

In fact, that amounts to an unbalanced policy favoring more of the same: more housing for people who can already afford it, not enough for people who can't.

With new data showing that the amount of money a person would need to earn to afford a basic apartment in Salt Lake City is about 30 percent more than the local mean wage, it is clear that the priority of government must be to encourage - and, where necessary, help pay for - the kind of housing that more people can actually afford.