New York City's Affordable Housing Wizard

"Mr. Donovan, 40, holds the unenviable job of trying to fulfill Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's multibillion-dollar promise to create or preserve 165,000 units of low- and moderate-income housing by 2013. He took on the assignment, in 2004, at an inauspicious moment: Land values were climbing, construction costs rising, the inventory of city-owned property drying up, landlords opting out of state and federal programs that had kept rents low.

Two and a half years later, Mr. Donovan is seen nationally as a pioneer in finding new ways to create and preserve low-cost housing. Paradoxically, he has tried to do it by capitalizing on the strength of the real estate market itself.

'I would never believe that the private sector, left to its own devices, is the best possible solution,' Mr. Donovan said recently. 'I'm in government because of the role of government in setting rules and working in partnership with the private sector. On the other hand, there's no way you could ever get to a scale that can really affect the housing problems in this country without working with the market.' "