I just discovered Steve Randy Waldman’s blog called Interfluidity and, more specifically, a post he wrote called: “ Home is where the cartel is .” I am now following him.
He starts off by saying that housing is a bitch, which is just him saying that urban housing is a difficult problem to solve. A truism for this audience.
He doesn’t profess to have all of the answers, but he does write a thoughtful piece that covers, among other things: the “market urbanist” (supply-side) solution to solving housing affordability, the reasons why the “housing cartel” will never approve of this, and the inherent contradiction between housing as an investment and housing as a sustainably affordable good.
He also offers up Singapore and Germany as examples of two very different housing markets. It reminded me of a tweet I retweeted this morning which shows Germany as having the 2nd lowest homeownership rate (45%) among OECD countries.