Over the next two weeks, Next City will unroll short profiles of 77 people, places and ideas that have changed cities this year. Together, they make up our 2012 Disruption Index. Forefront subscribers can download the Index in full as a PDF, complete with beautiful designs and graphics by Danni Sinisi. Readers who make a $75 donation to Next City will have a full-color printed copy of the Index mailed to them.

You can’t legislate a solution to the housing market’s post-recession woes. But it doesn’t hurt to try, and Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson is certainly trying. In office since 2005, Isakson has translated his previous experience as president of a real estate company into legislation largely aimed at rejiggering the housing market into a more reasonable and fiscally responsible system.

Most recently he’s proposed the dissolution of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federal government’s mortgage security arms. He wants to replace them with a new entity that, within a 10-year timeframe, would privatize and therefore relieve the public of the risk of government-backed mortgages. Isakson argues that a system like this would protect taxpayers should the housing market undergo another major downturn. He’s also made other efforts to counteract the aftereffects of the housing bust, such as lifting some of the burdens on people whose homes are underwater and tax credits for new homebuyers in the immediate months after the crash. It’s not a cure-all, but Isakson’s efforts to legislate solutions are important steps toward reducing the inherent risk of the housing market.

Nate Berg is a writer and journalist covering cities, architecture and urban planning. Nate’s work has been published in a wide variety of publications, including the New York Times, NPR, Wired, Metropolis, Fast Company, Dwell, Architect, the Christian Science Monitor, LA Weekly and many others. He is a former staff writer at The Atlantic Cities and was previously an assistant editor at Planetizen.