The United States is in the grip of a housing affordability crisis, especially in its high-productivity cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and New York. In addition to harming individuals, this is also having a deleterious effect on the country’s economic growth. But what is behind this problem, and what can be done to remedy it? Lynn Fisher joins the podcast to discuss.

Dr. Fisher recently joined AEI as a resident scholar and co-director of the Center on Housing Markets and Finance. Before this she served on the faculty at Washington State University and the University of North Carolina, and was director of the Housing Affordability Initiative at MIT.

Learn more:

Subscribe to Political Economy with James Pethokoukis in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.

There are 2 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Texmoor Coolidge
    Texmoor
    @Texmoor

    Very depressing for a wannabe first time homebuyer :(

    • #1
  2. Kephalithos Member
    Kephalithos
    @Kephalithos

    But “ossification” sells. If I have sufficient money to buy a house in a major city, and I’m faced with a choice between a tastefully restored Craftsman bungalow (or a sumptuous Romanesque townhouse) and some soulless concrete-and-steel condominium, I’m going, two times out of three, to choose the older building. 

    Now, redevelopment wouldn’t be such a problem if we westerners hadn’t lost our ability to build beautiful things, but we have. Whatever replaces those circa-1905 Boston housing units will necessarily be inferior to them. Necessarily.

    I know it’s a subjective argument, but do we really want all our cities to look like Tokyo and Houston? Both are soul-suckingly ugly.

    • #2
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.