As a long-time StrongTowns member, a new StrongTowns book is always awaited with anticipation. Even if I don’t align with every aspect of the StrongTowns philosophy, the books written by StrongTowns leadership are always insightful, thought-provoking, and useful in creating community dialogue.

“Escaping the Housing Trap” is no exception.

The first third of the book addresses the century-long transition that made home mortgages and their derivatives a central support of the national economy, inhibiting national leaders from responding rationally to the role of the housing market as a provider of shelter. I lack the background in economics to adequately judge the argument. However, the reasoning presented by the authors seems credible. To validate my impressions, I had a copy of the book sent directly to a cousin who is a retired economics professor. I’m awaiting her thoughts.

The second third of the book, on the role of zoning, building codes, PUDs, and more in impacting the housing market, was more familiar terrain as I was already acquainted with the work of Gray, Parolek, Lauster, Rothstein, and others. The authors build on that work, with a particularly strong example of a 1952 position of the Urban Land Institute on building to a “finished state”, a flawed concept that further inhibits the ability of the housing market to provide shelter.

These first two segments constitute the argument that the nation is in a “housing trap”. The final third of the book lays out the StrongTowns proposal to address this housing trap. This segment was more problematic to me. While I agree with loosening zoning code and related restrictions on homeowners and small builders to ease the housing crisis, I don’t believe “unleashing the swarm” will make a substantial difference, at least where I live.

One reason for my reluctance is that my town is a counter-example to a key assertion made by the authors. They argue that capital flows easily to housing types, particularly finished state single-family homes and 5-over-1 multifamily, that don’t adequately address the housing crisis. But in my community, even those housing types are often not financially feasible, with construction costs out of alignment with local wages. This financial infeasibility seems to flow onward to the types of housing additions that the “swarm” might build. Thus, I fear unleashing the swarm would have negligible impact.

This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t undertake the zoning and related loosening called for by the authors, only that the loosening would provide little benefit.

To their credit, Marohn telling the story that he and his co-author pushed back on their publisher describing the book as the “StrongTowns solution” to housing, instead insisting on “StrongTowns response”, lessens their culpability for insufficiently useful ideas. Nonetheless, I could still wish for more actionable insights about the housing crisis.

This criticism aside, the book remains a valuable addition to the national conversation on housing and is easily worth five stars. It has already begun triggering renewed housing conversations in my community. And that is the best test of any book.

Brand	N/A
Rating	4.7 (57 ratings)
Price	$20.49
Category	Real Estate

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