LONDON — Is there a better way to do public housing?

That’s the $32 billion question facing the federal monitor appointed to oversee New York City’s dysfunctional Housing Authority, fresh from its recent lead paint debacle. Estimates say the still-rising costs for repairs to all Nycha properties are now approaching the annual gross domestic product of Bahrain.

Few cities in the world face housing problems as big as New York’s. That said, New York might learn a thing or two from the East London borough of Hackney.

Hackney has been upgrading its public housing projects — or council housing estates, as the British call them. The approach entails a combination of new construction along with renovating some existing buildings, everything underwritten by the addition of market-rate apartments.