
Escaping the Housing Trap
The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis
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Narrated by:
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Stephen R. Thorne
About this listen
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.
Escaping the Housing Trap is the must-have resource for everyone with a stake in the future of housing in America-and that means everyone. Listeners 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; and a comprehensive overview of the Strong Towns approach to solving the American housing crisis.
©2024 Charles Marohn and Daniel Herriges (P)2024 Ascent AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
In Homelessness Is a Housing Problem, Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern seek to explain the substantial regional variation in rates of homelessness in cities across the United States. In a departure from many analytical approaches, Colburn and Aldern shift their focus from the individual experiencing homelessness to the metropolitan area. Using accessible statistical analysis, they test a range of conventional beliefs about what drives the prevalence of homelessness in a given city and find that none explain the regional variation observed across the country.
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NO PDF! NO CHARTS!
- By P. Dean on 06-02-23
By: Gregg Colburn, and others
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Walkable City Rules
- 101 Steps to Making Better Places
- By: Jeff Speck
- Narrated by: Jeff Speck
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Nearly every US city would like to be more walkable - for reasons of health, wealth, and the environment - yet few are taking the proper steps to get there. The goals are often clear, but the path is seldom easy. Jeff Speck’s follow-up to his best-selling Walkable City is the resource that cities and citizens need to usher in an era of renewed street life. Walkable City Rules is a doer’s guide to making change in cities, and making it now.
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Excellent compendium for pro and enthusiast alike
- By Ostyn on 02-23-19
By: Jeff Speck
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The Death and Life of Great American Cities
- 50th Anniversary Edition
- By: Jane Jacobs, Jason Epstein - introduction
- Narrated by: Donna Rawlins
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
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Thirty years after its publication, The Death and Life of Great American Cities was described by The New York Times as "perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning....[It] can also be seen in a much larger context. It is first of all a work of literature; the descriptions of street life as a kind of ballet and the bitingly satiric account of traditional planning theory can still be read for pleasure even by those who long ago absorbed and appropriated the book's arguments."
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Fantastic text, dull on audio
- By Meghan on 02-13-15
By: Jane Jacobs, and others
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Stuck
- How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity
- By: Yoni Appelbaum
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In this illuminating debut, Yoni Appelbaum, historian and journalist for The Atlantic, shows us that this idea has been under attack since reformers first developed zoning laws to ghettoize Chinese Americans in nineteenth-century Modesto, California. The century of legal segregation that ensued—from the zoning laws enacted to force Jewish workers back into New York’s Lower East Side to the private-sector discrimination and racist public policy that trapped Black families in Flint, Michigan to Jane Jacobs’ efforts to protect her vision of the West Village.
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land of opportunity
- By Anonymous User on 03-16-25
By: Yoni Appelbaum
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There Is No Place for Us
- Working and Homeless in America
- By: Brian Goldstone
- Narrated by: Dion Graham, Brian Goldstone
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The working homeless. In a country where hard work and determination are supposed to lead to success, there is something scandalous about this phrase. But skyrocketing rents, low wages, and a lack of tenant rights have produced a startling phenomenon: People with full-time jobs cannot keep a roof over their head, especially in America’s booming cities, where rapid growth is leading to catastrophic displacement. These families are being forced into homelessness not by a failing economy but a thriving one.
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Powerful and Informative!
- By Malika on 06-01-25
By: Brian Goldstone
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Why We're Polarized
- By: Ezra Klein
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In Why We’re Polarized, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics.
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Good as an intro, skip if you’re a wonk
- By Tony on 01-29-20
By: Ezra Klein
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Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated
- The Collapse and Revival of American Community
- By: Robert D. Putnam
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 18 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on vast new data that reveal Americans' changing behavior, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from one another and how social structures - whether they be PTA, church, or political parties - have disintegrated. Until the publication of this groundbreaking work, no one had so deftly diagnosed the harm that these broken bonds have wreaked on our physical and civic health, nor had anyone exalted their fundamental power in creating a society that is happy, healthy, and safe.
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Long Long book
- By William S. Gross on 11-13-17
By: Robert D. Putnam
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The Power Broker
- Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
- By: Robert A. Caro
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 66 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Robert Caro's monumental book makes public what few outsiders knew: that Robert Moses was the single most powerful man of his time in the City and in the State of New York. And in telling the Moses story, Caro both opens up to an unprecedented degree the way in which politics really happens—the way things really get done in America's City Halls and Statehouses—and brings to light a bonanza of vital information about such national figures as Alfred E. Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt (and the genesis of their blood feud), about Fiorello La Guardia, John V. Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller.
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AMAZING read
- By jeff on 09-15-11
By: Robert A. Caro
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Erasing History
- By: Jason Stanley
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Combining historical research with an in-depth analysis of our modern political landscape, Erasing History issues a dire warning for America and the world: the worst fascist movements of humanity’s past began in schools; the same place so many of today’s right-wing political parties have trained their most vicious attacks. Yale professor Jason Stanley exposes the true danger of the right’s tactics and traces their inspirations and funding back to some of the most dangerous ideas of human history.
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The bias attitude of the author
- By Elizabeth ohanna on 09-30-24
By: Jason Stanley
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Bad Law
- Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America
- By: Elie Mystal
- Narrated by: Elie Mystal
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times bestselling author brings his trademark legal acumen and passionate snark to offer a brilliant takedown of ten shocking pieces of legislation that continue to perpetuate hate, racial bias, injustice, and inequality today—an urgent yet hopeful story for our current political climate
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Chicken Soup for the Political Soul
- By Gracie on 05-22-25
By: Elie Mystal
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Abundance
- By: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all.
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Advice to the Democratic Party from Klein & Thompson
- By Betsy Fowler on 03-31-25
By: Ezra Klein, and others
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The Coddling of the American Mind
- How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
- By: Jonathan Haidt, Greg Lukianoff
- Narrated by: Jonathan Haidt
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The culture of “safety” and its intolerance of opposing viewpoints has left many young people anxious and unprepared for adult life. Lukianoff and Haidt offer a comprehensive set of reforms that will strengthen young people and institutions, allowing us all to reap the benefits of diversity, including viewpoint diversity. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what’s happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live and work and cooperate across party lines.
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Only Praise
- By TJ on 12-02-18
By: Jonathan Haidt, and others
Solutions…
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outrageous enough to make your blood boil; inspiring enough to calm you back down
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Practical Wisdom
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A Must Listen for Housing
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Excellent and intelligent description of housing crisis and what needs to change.
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Clear telling of how we got here, and ways to move forward
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A timely book about being a part of local change for the better
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I'd recommend to anyone
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