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The Seattle area continues to defy the national trend of a sharply slumping housing market. The result is fewer people can afford homes, especially anywhere near their work. So what to do about it?

A thoughtful commentary by a realtor ran in the Seattle Times Wednesday, making the case that the affordable housing cruch was caused by the state’s Growth Management Act. That law required counties to figure out how to focus development in order to curb sprawl. It also upset a lot of rural landowners, and spurred a rollback measure this fall called I-933.

Though he doesn’t take a stand on I-933 — which many business groups support — he suggests five sensible policy steps:

• Require that growth-management plans under the GMA result in no net loss of housing opportunities;

• Require that growth-management plans balance projected job growth with growth in the housing supply, to ensure employees can live in communities where they work;

• Ask communities to increase affordable-housing opportunities. Some strategies include flexibility in lot sizes and allowing detached “accessory dwelling units,” such as those proposed by Mayor Greg Nickels;

• Establish performance measures for growth-management plans, to measure whether they actually accommodate growth and to verify that municipalities are adjusting plans to accommodate growth, as they are required to by law;

• Make the funding of critical infrastructure projects — such as roads, sewers and water — a priority in state and local budgeting.

Voiding current growth laws is a big mistake. But there are critical missing links. The Seattle area should follow examples of its Cascadia neighbors Vancouver and Portland in fixing them. Encourage more dense in-fill development and build the infrastructure necessary to make living in built-up areas attractive.

“I always vote but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. What else can I do?” That was the question of a gray-haired lady who took time on a sunny Saturday afternoon to hear a senator from North Dakota talk about making globalization more fair.

Unfortunately Senator Byron Dorgan didn’t give answers. In Seattle to promote his new book Take This Job and Ship It, he told a few dozen people sad tales of workers who had lost their jobs when companies shifted production abroad. An example: he said he’s outraged that Huffy bicycles are now made in China by workers who are paid 33 cents an hour while American taxpayers are stuck paying the pensions of former American workers.

Dorgan wrote the book because he’s frustrated that Republicans in Congress control trade policy. He rightly blamed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its corporate backers for laws that ignore the concerns of workers. But will populist anger without solutions win Democrats votes?

Obviously there are lots of losers in the current form of globalization. Yet in Cascadia, the most trade-dependent region on the continent, people want to hear how to make the system work better. Leaders need to explain concrete steps that can help more people benefit, things like better educating Americans (and Canadians!) while improving environmental and worker standards overseas.

In a nod to Seattle’s reason for being, several times Dorgan said “I support trade. I’m not against trade. But it has to be fair trade.” But that’s a classic canard of protectionists. In fact, Dorgan voted for the 2002 Farm Bill, which unfairly doles out billions of taxpayer dollars to support prices of U.S. crops so farmers in poorer countries can’t compete. Their only choice is to shift to cut-rate manufacturing — an opportunity corporations eagerly provide.

Dorgan’s book actually includes some solid ideas (tax policy that discourages exporting jobs and pollution, for example). If the book reaches readers who are brainwashed by pro-globalization cheerleaders like Tom Friedman it may add to the policy debate. But Dorgan wasted his opportunity in Seattle, leaving yet another old lady and many like her worried about globalization with no idea what to do about it.