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 Solution 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 to restore balance to the housing market.

Escaping the Housing Trap is the must-read resource for everyone with a stake in the future of housing in America?and that means everyone. Readers will find:

• Discussions of housing as an investment and how the country's neighborhoods are being transformed by the introduction of large amounts of investment
• Explorations of housing as shelter, including discussions of zoning policy and NIMBYism
• A comprehensive overview of the Strong Towns approach to solving the American housing crisis

Introduction vii

Part I Housing as Investment 1

1. Is Housing Shelter or an Investment? 3

2. Building the Trap 13

3. Setting the Trap 29

4. Trapped 51

Part II Housing as Shelter 71

5. Zoning Lockdown 73

6. Not in My Backyard 97

7. Yes! In My Backyard 115

8. Affordable with a Capital “A” 133

Part III Housing in a Strong Town 149

9. A System That Produces a Solution 151

10. Releasing the Swarm 165

11. Financing a Housing Revolution 181

12. Building a Strong Town 201

References 207

Index 213

CHARLES L. MAROHN, JR.is the president and co-founder of Strong Towns, a nationally-recognized nonprofit media organization working to shape the conversation on growth, development and the future of cities. Strong Towns supports a model of development that allows America’s cities, towns, and neighborhoods to grow financially strong and resilient.

DANIEL HERRIGESserves as Senior Editor for Strong Towns, and has been a regular contributor since 2015. He has a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota, with a concentration in Housing and Community Development.