Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis

Housing is an investment. Investment prices must go up. Housing is shelter. When the price of shelter goes up, people experience distress. This is the housing trap. It's time to escape. In Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis , renowned urbanists Charles (Chuck) Marohn and Daniel Herriges introduce a first-of-its-kind discussion of the tension between housing as a financial product and housing as shelter. This is the key insight that's been missing from the Housing Crisis Conversation; and the insight that can help cities fight back against the crisis from the bottom-up. This book offers a serious, yet accessible, history of housing policy in the United States and explains how it led us to this point in time: where we face a market that is rigged against people who, only a few decades ago, could have been homeowners or stable, long-term rentals. Only local change, on a neighborhood or city-wide scale, can begin... Explore the past, present, and future of housing in America, as well as solutions to its most pressing problems In Escaping the Housing The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis, renowned urbanists Charles L. Marohn Jr. and Daniel Herriges deliver an insightful and engaging discussion of the wicked problem of housing in the context of planning and public policy. The book identifies the tension that exists between the concepts of housing as a financial product and housing as shelter in American society. The authors convincingly argue that the root of our nations housing woes is that the economy is designed to produce short-term growth at the expense of lasting wealth, and that a key piece of the answer to this problem must be incremental development at the local scale and neighborhood level. Readers will also Perfect for anyone with an interest in home ownership either on an individual level or on a larger, communal scale Escaping the Housing Trap is a cant-miss resource for urban and regional planners, housing experts, social justice advocates and professionals, and everyone with a stake in the future of housing in America.