To the Editor:
“Our Housing Crisis, in One Chart,” by Ezra Klein (column, Nov. 30), shows clearly how years of underbuilding have left millions without stable, affordable homes. But the chart also hides a design problem: We still picture housing mainly as a line of units to produce, not as living habitats where community, wellness and a local economy coexist.
In most cities, the raw space for a different answer already exists — in empty buildings, vacant lots and forgotten blocks. Each one could become an “urban villa” — a small neighborhood within the neighborhood, where homes, shared courtyards, work spaces and gardens are intentionally layered on a single site.
If we want to close the housing gap and heal isolation at the same time, we need to think beyond unit counts. Cities could start by piloting just a handful of urban villa sites, treating each as a seedbed for many forms of life, not just more square footage.
Conrad Heiderer Detroit
To the Editor:
I live three hours north of New York City, in Saratoga Springs. I love my city, but affordable housing is nonexistent here as well.
I am retired, divorced and living alone in a one-bedroom apartment. My rent has increased more than 10 percent since a new owner purchased the building. It is unsustainable. The story is the same everywhere.
I have no quarrel with those who want to build or buy their gargantuan dream home. I just can’t understand why those without means or those who simply want a much more streamlined life can’t afford to have it.
The building codes need to accommodate the present reality. Americans need quality housing that is made to last hundreds of years. We are talking about houses, not rockets. Contractors already have the knowledge. We are talking about having the political will to allow a change to the housing codes to allow affordable housing construction. Not just apartment complexes but small affordable, quality built homes.
Thank you, Ezra Klein, for your journalism.
Gail Barraco Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
To the Editor:
We didn’t run out of homes. We ran out of homeowners.
Ezra Klein argues that today’s crisis stems from “too much money chasing too few homes.” But on a per-person basis, America now has more housing than any previous generation. In 1940, the United States had about 37 million homes. Today it has roughly 148 million — four times as many — while the population has grown far less. Scarcity isn’t the story.
The real shift is who is doing the buying.
A generation ago, most homes were purchased by families planning to stay and build equity; investors made up only a sliver of the market. Today, investors account for about a quarter of all home purchases, and in many metro areas, well over a third. Married couples with children — once the backbone of homeownership — now represent just 17 percent of households.
Capital moved into housing the way it always does: fast, aggressively and without sentiment. Prices rose not because homes became rare, but because housing became a financial instrument. Until we confront that shift, affordability will remain out of reach.
Dain Ehring Dallas The writer is an entrepreneur and a former chief executive in the mortgage technology industry.
To the Editor:
Ezra Klein’s column suggests another contributor to the current mess: the multihouse family.
In the four-townhouse complex in Portland where I live, one of my neighbors lives six days per week in another home in another town. Another neighbor owns a house in Brooklyn and three in Maine, all of which she shares with her two dogs; thus, three out of her four homes are always empty. One of my wealthy relatives and his wife have three residences.
If extrapolated to the general population, there must be a lot of vacant houses: duplicates owned for convenience, not for rental income.
The above is only a tiny sampling. Nevertheless, I doubt we’ll alter many of the fundamental difficulties facing the middle and working class until we significantly alter our tax paradigm. Since the wealthy control the levers of government, until we cease allowing big donors to fund national elections, we’ll make no serious inroads on these issues.
It is another face of rugged individualism and its prerogatives.
George H. Stewart Portland, Maine
To the Editor:
The dream outcome of the real estate industry’s propaganda campaign is for journalists like Ezra Klein and others to continue arguing that housing’s high cost is caused by NIMBYism embodied in local government zoning policies. It’s also dreamy for politicians who get to sound caring while they suck up to a wealthy industry.
Building new is much more profitable than simply reselling an existing home. With new construction’s high cost, new housing won’t yield affordability. If density produced affordable housing, New York and Boston would be cheap. A 2023 study by the Urban Institute found no statistically verifiable evidence that more lower-cost housing became available even nine years after deregulation allowing increased density.
Allowing much denser development fuels demolition of the most affordable existing housing, yielding gentrification on steroids. Minority neighborhoods are hardest hit by resulting displacement.
A growing portion of the population no longer constitutes “demand” in the supply-demand paradigm. The dysfunctional concentration of wealth means that housing and other life needs are increasingly beyond the means of many people.
Effective public policies? Foremost, a just economy that pays livable wages. Then preservation of existing housing and subsidizing creation of permanently affordable housing. Blaming local government is scapegoating for profit, which delays functional solutions.
Sherri Zann Rosenthal Durham, N.C.
To the Editor:
Ezra Klein’s argument about America’s housing crisis leans on a comparison so oversimplified it obscures more than it reveals. Yes, we built more in the 1970s, because we were a different country. Birthrates were high, population growth was rapid, and household formation was surging. Today, all three have collapsed. Millions of baby boomer homes will soon turn over through aging alone. Yet Mr. Klein treats supply as though demand were static and demographics frozen in amber.
He also sidesteps the most important economic truth of the last 40 years: Affordability collapsed because the cost of every must-have rose while wages flatlined. Families now spend far more on food, transportation, health care, child care and debt before they can even think about a home. Housing didn’t suddenly become scarce; people simply have less left over to afford it.
Mr. Klein also neglects to factor in a central force driving today’s market dysfunction: interest rates. Ultralow rates inflated prices; then soaring rates locked millions of owners in place. That’s not a zoning problem. That’s a Federal Reserve problem.
Reducing all this to “build more” is not policy insight; it’s a slogan. And it conveniently benefits the same moneyed interests already turning neighborhoods into investment strategies.
Mike Lewis Encinitas, Calif.
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