September 9, 2025 • 39 mins
Housing affects every aspect of our lives, yet few of us truly understand the complex systems that determine where and how we live. In this eye-opening conversation with Dr. Andrew Carswell, co-editor of "Introduction to Housing, Third Edition," we explore the fascinating evolution of housing markets and what the future might hold.
Carswell reveals how the timing of each edition coincided with pivotal moments in housing history—from the mid-2000s housing bubble to the uneven recovery period following the Great Recession, and now the pandemic era that fundamentally changed our relationship with home spaces.
Looking toward the future, several trends emerge: universal design principles for aging in place, accessory dwelling units for multigenerational living, and valuable lessons from international housing models where smaller spaces coexist with high quality of life. Perhaps most provocatively, Carswell suggests that declining global birth rates may soon have countries competing for immigrants rather than restricting them, as both new households and skilled construction labor become increasingly precious resources.
Show Notes:
- Further Reading:
- Mine!: The hidden rules of home ownership control our lives by Michael A. Heller and James Salzman
- Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
- YIMBY Action: https://yimbyaction.org/
- To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stephanie Rouse (00:12):
you're listening to the booked on
planning podcast, a project ofthe nebraska chapter of the
american planning association.
In each episode we dive intohow cities function by talking
with authors on housing,transportation and everything in
between.
Join us as we get Booked onPlanning.
(00:37):
Welcome back Bookworms, toanother episode of Booked on
Planning.
In this episode we talk withAndrew Carswell on his book
Introduction to Housing, thethird edition.
Along with his two co-editors,katrin Anker and Sarah Kirby,
they lay the foundations for thefield of housing, covering
everything from its history herein the US to housing trends on
each continent.
Jennifer Hiatt (00:57):
Housing really touches every part of our lives,
so it's important to have asolid understanding of what
influences the market.
An introduction to housingprovides that solid foundation
of information and I reallyappreciated that, although it is
primarily focused in the UShousing market, there are large
sections of internationalhousing as well.
It's good to know what's goingon in other countries.
Stephanie Rouse (01:17):
Exactly and take away some lessons as well.
It's clear this book makes agreat foundation for an academic
course, but I also think it's agood read for anyone whose
career doesn't focus on housingto gain a better understanding
of it.
As we talk about in the episode, housing influences economic
output and vice versa.
It's hard not to interact withhousing.
As you mentioned, it touchesevery part of our lives.
Jennifer Hiatt (01:38):
Plus, with all the fluctuation that's happening
in the housing market right now, the background of the housing
market that this book providesactually helped me be a little
more optimistic about the futureof housing overall.
Let's get into our conversationwith author Andrew Carswell on
his book.
Stephanie Rouse (01:58):
Introduction to Housing, third edition.
Andy, thank you for joining uson Booked on Planning to talk
about the third edition of yourbook, Introduction to Housing.
It's easy to see how this bookwould be used in university
programs, as it's a really greatoverview of all the various
components in the field.
How has this edition evolvedover the course of three
different writings?
Andrew Carswell (02:14):
First off, I would like to take the time to
thank you for inviting me to theprogram.
I may have mentioned thisbefore, but I found Booked On
Planning to be a really goodresource for me back in 2022
when I was studying for the AICPexam.
Since I passed it.
I'll give you guys some creditfor having done that.
(02:35):
And one other thing I do wantto mention that my two
co-editors I really would beremiss to not mention them
Katrin Aniker and Sarah Kirby,and Katrin in particular, was
the huge driving force behindassembling these contributions
and the contributors to each ofour 20-some chapters.
But back to your originalquestion.
(02:55):
We think this has potential fora lot of audiences and we sort
of take heart in the fact thatthere are a number of libraries
throughout the world that haveembraced this book in its first
and second editions, and youknow it's very new this third
edition, but we think it'sincrementally better than the
second one.
So we expect the same kind ofnumbers.
There's a pretty easilyaccessible website that
(03:18):
accumulates all the librariesthat have adopted the book and
while, yes, most of them are inuniversity settings, there are
also some that are out therethat are government agencies and
nonprofit and sometimes evenfor-profit libraries and even
public libraries that are muchmore scattered.
This kind of serves asvalidation for us that housing
(03:38):
is one of those issues thatreally permeates society.
I talk to my class a lot Imentioned that and I fervently
feel this that housing has a lotof interdisciplinary interest
in it urban planning, sociology,psychology Buying a home has a
lot of psychology attached to itand economics and business
finance.
I'm a finance major from wayback, and so you could consider
(04:02):
this one of the so-calledprimers on the subject matter,
which really just says it's apretty broad swath of housing
issues.
Jennifer Hiatt (04:08):
And I know you guys don't really talk about the
COVID market, but you startedthe book by giving an overview
of the housing landscapes asthey've existed in each of the
three editions as they werepublished, and you were, of
course, writing this during theCOVID-19 pandemic.
So what were you guys thinkingabout as you're trying to write
a book on housing, as thehousing market was going wild?
Andrew Carswell (04:28):
Well, perhaps a little bit of pretext about the
environments in the first twoeditions, because there was some
stuff going on there too.
Our first edition, which wasreleased in 2006, was pretty
much right on the heels of thehousing market of the early to
mid 2000s and there's sort oflike an increasing realization
(04:48):
that housing is more commodifiedand put in the secondary market
and heavily in the financearena.
So the time at which that bookwas pretty much hot off the
press was also the time of theburgeoning housing bubble.
It's funny to go look back onthat.
We were very proud of that book, but it was only about 12
chapters.
It's pretty skinny.
But we did have a lot ofclassroom adoptions and I want
(05:11):
to say almost three dozencolleges and universities were
repeat adopters and of course weloved that.
This gave us some sense.
We had a pretty good product,but also one that could be
improved upon.
I think we all knew that, andI'm the only consistent editor
throughout all three editions,so I was kind of right there in
the trenches for all of them.
That second edition wasnoteworthy in timing for a few
(05:32):
reasons.
The difference in timingbetween the first and second
editions was about 12 years, andwhen we approached the
publisher, we felt like therewas this real hunger out there
for even more info than theprevious version, and Katrin had
joined on by then.
Sarah did too.
As a matter of fact, thehousing crisis was over, but the
recovery period for many areasof the country was very uneven,
(05:55):
so much so that there was kindof a feeling of inequity across
the landscape, and it's beentalked about a lot in academic
circles.
You mentioned COVID.
Covid was concurrent with whenwe started the process of
getting the authors, and I wouldsay that most of the writing
for this occurred between late2020 and 2023.
So we had sort of staggeredchapters.
(06:16):
But this was an interestingtime to write chapters for a few
reasons.
Our authors, and much of thegeneral public for that matter,
were starting to realize theimportance of home is much more
than just a structure that youretreat to at the end of the day
.
For them, it was viewed as arefuge from this silent,
sinister virus that was scaringthe daylights out of people, and
(06:37):
many people realized that homecould now be viewed as their
sort of de facto officeenvironment, and the function of
homes seemed to radicallychange accordingly, and almost
overnight.
If you remember there was alsothat period of time that we had
quote unquote supply chainissues and homeowners, some of
whom needed to expand theirhomes to accommodate for extra
(06:59):
office space, were finding thatprice of lumber and other home
materials were going crazy.
I was in that camp, by the way.
This also seemed to be a timewhen some of these online sites
like Zillow and Redfin, startedto flourish.
I didn't consult with Katrinabout this, but I also think
this might have been a good timeto actually receive chapters
(07:20):
from contributors, because theywere probably bored out of their
skull from staying home andaway from campus.
Stephanie Rouse (07:27):
You brought up supply chain issues during COVID
and that really spikedconstruction costs and we all
thought you know things willlevel out, it'll go back to
normal.
But it really hasn't.
Cost of construction is stillvery high, making it really
difficult to build affordable orattainable housing, and it's
something that's permeatinglocal all the way up to federal
level.
But you note some trends inbuilding construction that have
(07:49):
helped reduce the cost of homebuilding.
Can you talk about some ofthose?
Andrew Carswell (07:53):
Yeah, I can answer this from a few
perspectives, and it goes beyondjust construction.
I think there's issues ofdemand and other sort of norm
changes in housing that areprobably worth noting.
First off, I have to sort ofhumbly submit that I was wrong
about something.
I'm not a very good soothsayeror foreseer futurist, whatever,
(08:15):
because in 2009, I first heardthe term tiny home and I just
thought it was a fad that wouldgo away.
And here we are, 15, 16 yearslater and we're still talking
about it.
We talk about housing norms inone of my classes, basically
like what society or normalperson would expect out of the
(08:38):
home.
Square footage is a very strongnorm that has been just going
up over time.
Well, the response to some ofthese price issues has been for
people to scale back some oftheir space concerns.
My colleague, kim Skoba, haswritten about this a lot.
There are some signs of hopethat tiny homes or condensed
(09:00):
neighborhoods that sort ofresemble single family have a
future and that will have someeffects on costs or help lower
costs.
There's also this concept oflean construction.
It's not really talked abouttoo much in the book but it's
worth mentioning in the contextof the question.
My colleagues at LouisianaState University, eason Namens
in particular, borrows from leanproduction techniques that are
(09:24):
utilized in Japan and otherareas that basically there's so
much waste in your landfill yournormal landfill that's
attributed to constructionactivities.
One estimate has it at 50%,which is pretty much
mind-blowing.
But there are ways of sort ofcutting down on that waste and
reducing defects in materials.
There's always been in theindustry.
(09:44):
I forgot to mention up frontthat I used to work for National
Association of Home Builders,so I get a lot of this
information from them.
There's a tendency foroverproduction of materials.
There's excessivetransportation, unnecessary idle
time during the process itself.
All this stuff can bestreamlined and that's what lean
construction sort of focuses on.
(10:05):
There's a chapter in our book onsustainable housing.
One of the better chapters andone of our housing educator
legends is a guy named JoeLaQuatra.
He's devoted a pretty largechunk of his career since
retired towards benefits ofenergy efficiency and renewable
energy, and these are all thingsthat may not necessarily be
easy to witness at the front endor the construction aspect, but
(10:28):
certainly this has lots ofimplications over the life cycle
of the home for the consumerand ultimately affects overall
affordability of housing forfamilies.
Because one little known thingthat doesn't get caught up in
the data too much but utilitiesactually are part of the bundle
of costs that are associatedwith housing, so if you think
about it from a lifespanperspective, that's a big deal.
(10:52):
One of my favorite academics andone of the authors in the book
is a guy by the name of AndrewMcCoy, and his big thing now is
on 3D printing housing.
It's not taken off like afirestorm yet, but the potential
for this is pretty incredible.
Now, the drawback of 3Dprinting housing it's not taken
off like a firestorm yet, butthe potential for this is pretty
incredible.
Now, the drawback of 3D printedhomes is that it's a pretty
capital-intensive process.
Does require some technicalskills to operate.
(11:15):
The benefits, though, are thatif this type of housing were to
take off, the economies of scalewould eventually make this a
pretty cheap way to build a home.
It would seemingly reduce thelabor component of home building
and has been shown to reducethe time to build a home by a
lot.
As we tape this right now, ahurricane is barreling down on
(11:36):
parts of the North Carolinacoast, and part of the obvious
potential for something likethat is in hurricane-affected
areas and disaster-affectedareas where you can mass produce
it.
Andrew also talks aboutdiffusion of innovations, and I
think that has a lot of costimplications.
If you can have some of thesereally cool things that are
(11:57):
being produced on the housingfront from the housing suppliers
and there's tons of them butthey take a long time to diffuse
throughout the constructionindustry there's a way to
tighten that up you can actuallyhave much more of like the
median home market to enjoythose advantages.
There's a guy that has sort ofbecome an evangelist.
(12:18):
His name's Rob Crane.
He's actually not one of ourauthors, but I really need to
mention him here.
He's a big evangelist forhousing assistance programs and
he would tell you that there areseveral down payment assistance
programs of varying forms thatconsumers just don't take
advantage of, which is kind ofmind blowing.
It's not surprising to me thatthese things exist from
(12:41):
localities and sometimes evenstates or nonprofit groups,
because they understand thathomeownership has huge community
advantages that benefit them aswell as the ultimate recipients
of that assistance.
Stephanie Rouse (12:53):
You talk about down payment assistance programs
.
We've had one for decades nowhere in the city of Lincoln and
it was a really great program.
It helped buyers that weremaking less than 80% area median
income get into their firsthome, build equity and then move
on.
Problem we're seeing lately isthat we're not finding eligible
buyers anymore.
So the program was helping over100 households a year.
(13:15):
Now we're well below thattrying to find anyone because
housing costs have gone up somuch and getting someone in
there.
We might find a way to buy downcosts with the down payment
assistance, but then theirmortgage payments are just
outstripping what they canactually afford.
So it's very complex.
Andrew Carswell (13:31):
It is.
Rob will tell you.
Some of the issues fornon-take-up is just lack of
information, but those are morestructural issues you're talking
about.
Yeah, that's got to be superfrustrating.
Jennifer Hiatt (13:44):
Staying on the theme of money, financing is
obviously an inherent part ofthe housing industry.
What impacts are you foreseeingfor the current economic
climate, which does not seem tobe letting go anytime soon, and
including inflation and thosehigh interest rates?
What are those long-termimplications for potential
homebuyers here?
Andrew Carswell (14:02):
Pretty huge.
As we sit here today, the Fedchairman has made a signal for
easing interest rates.
We're not sure if it's 25 or 50basis points, which is 0.25 to
0.50 percent.
These have big implications.
Interest rate either way canimpact housing decision for tens
(14:30):
or even hundreds of thousandsof households that might be on
the cusp of qualifying for aspecific home.
Now, just to give you anexample even your audience here.
An example current interestrates are around six and a half
percent, and if Powell were toreduce interest rates by 50
basis points, so like half apercent, the family who's
seeking a medium-priced home insome area I just basically said
(14:51):
$350,000.
With a 30-year loan, we'regoing to see their monthly
payment drop by more than $100,and this translates to about
$37,500 over the life of theloan.
I mean that's getting to besome pretty good money.
Lots of families would takethat.
We do have a problem out there,though.
We got a number of householdsthat got mortgages in the twos
(15:14):
yeah, I know, I see your handgoing up and I was that same way
and they're reluctant to leavetheir current homes because they
know they got it a little toogood, and they did with those
artificially low mortgage ratesNow 6% in the whole scope of
things from a historicalstandpoint is pretty low, but to
a whole generation of peoplenow it seems way too high for
(15:35):
them to venture into new hometerritory.
So we have a case of probablymillions of homes that are
anchored by their mortgage lock.
They don't want to leavebecause they got it too good
with that mortgage.
It's not terribly irrationalthinking from an individual
standpoint, but this has rippleeffects in that it decreases the
type of mobility that acapitalist country such as ours
(15:57):
is used to seeing andflourishing on.
From an inflation standpoint,inflation can be looked at a few
ways.
Housing inflation has been areal problem within the US.
I think nobody will disagreewith that.
It's a consistent themethroughout the book, quite
frankly.
But of course, if you are ahomeowner, you love housing
(16:18):
inflation because this meansyour equity is increasing as
well.
So this is small comfort tothose who keep getting priced
out by the increase in areahouse prices.
Regarding general inflation,let's step away from housing
inflation for a minute.
But just general inflation alsoa problem the more you pay at
(16:39):
the grocery store due to wheatshortages in Ukraine, opec price
hikes for oil and varioussupply chain issues.
There we go.
I've used supply chain twice inthis discussion.
That bottle up shipping andtransportation heck, it could be
eggs from bird flu, right?
All these things have an impacton your household budget for
(16:59):
what we call all other things,and that includes housing
payments as well.
Stephanie Rouse (17:04):
So, along those lines, can you discuss the tie
between economic productivityand housing and which is
influencing which?
Andrew Carswell (17:12):
Yes, I can, but I hope you don't think of it as
cop-out here.
It's a symbiotic relationship.
So in my housing theory classwe talk about the economic
impact of how housing can impactand affect number of jobs for a
specific type of housingdevelopment.
With some of that info that wascompiled by my former employer,
(17:33):
nahb, which was likelygenerated by some kind of
input-output fiscal impactanalysis software, we know that
for a development of 100single-family homes in a typical
local area, the local incomeeffects are tremendously high.
It generates over $20 millionfor those 100 units.
These include local businessowners' income, local wages and
(17:56):
salaries, and wages and salariesrelated to the work itself.
The number of jobs created byjust that one development is
probably around 250 or more.
This is for a typical.
I don't have a definition, bythe way, for typical, but I will
just say median average,something like that.
If you're talking aboutmultifamily, because that's for
single family I mentioned before, the number is considerably
(18:18):
less for 100 multifamily units,but it's still pretty impressive
and this is part of the reasonwhy housing is called and I drum
this into my students all thetime.
Housing and housing starts areleading economic indicators and
very closely watched.
So if you look at the type ofstats and data that's coming out
in a typical week, one of thebusiest data times, or most
(18:41):
watched, is housing starts,because what happens with them
will foretell what happens downthe road to the general economy
in about six to nine months.
Now, in the other direction,general economic productivity
well, that also affects housingfor the reverse causation part.
Basic economics pretty muchtells you that a productive
(19:02):
economy has beneficial effectsto the workers within that
economy.
Your real wage rises, which isa good thing.
That means you're outstrippinginflation.
When your real wage rises, youcan rent or buy a bigger or
better home.
Once that happens, yourresidential satisfaction likely
increases.
Once that happens, you'relikely to stay in your area
(19:24):
longer and I would argue thisultimately benefits communities.
Jennifer Hiatt (19:29):
Changing gear, getting a little bit away from
the monetary side of housing.
One of the big things thatLincoln is facing is the need
for senior housing, as manycommunities are as we get to a
graying population.
So what do you think are someof the more interesting
innovative solutions that arebeing explored to support these
senior living needs?
Andrew Carswell (19:48):
No doubt it is a big issue.
As far as the book goes, we doaddress this.
Deirdre Pfeiffer is our authoron senior housing and I think
she provides one of the mostpithy chapters on a really
highly relevant issue, given thefact that we've got in Western
world and this is spreading topretty much the entire world a
(20:10):
tremendous demographic swingthat is going on which is just,
as you said, the grain ofAmerica and society.
Quite frankly, she is kind ofthe perfect author for this
particular chapter because she'sfrom Arizona State and Arizona
is pretty much one of thefastest-growing retirement areas
(20:30):
.
As far as innovations in thedwelling itself, there's a
recognition that universaldesign housing is the way to go
for future generations.
For the listeners, it's asomewhat subtle form of design
that allows for flexibility asyou age.
Cabinets are too high so youcan seamlessly transition from
(20:51):
your 30s and 40s to a moreseasoned type of age.
The plugs are readily available, the doorways are wide enough
to accommodate wheelchairs etc.
But not makea big statement,and all without making it
obvious that an old person liveshere.
These are ways of allowingpeople to age in place within
homes where they're perfectlyhappy and they don't necessarily
(21:14):
want to leave.
I think about my own in-laws andthe situation they had where
they had to leave their home inCalifornia because it was just
too unwieldy for them, alsobeing cognizant of the fact that
planners listen to the podcast.
There are also innovativethings that they could be doing
as well.
(21:35):
In particular, I'm thinkingabout relaxing zoning for
accessory dwelling units, whichsometimes are just converted
garages that could accommodateaging parents to live on the
same property as their adultchildren while still maintaining
some privacy and dignity in theprocess.
There's some resistance to thatin some communities.
Athens, georgia, where I'm atright now, has had their own
(21:56):
sort of experiment with thisthing and it didn't necessarily
go great.
They relaxed restrictions onthat and ultimately, a lot of
people wound up using it forstudent housing.
So there's that.
Stephanie Rouse (22:11):
That's the biggest fear here in Lincoln too
.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andrew Carswell (22:14):
College towns.
It is what it is and you knowjust a shout out to our folks at
we have an excellent Instituteof Gerontology here in UGA and I
know the folks there very well.
They will tell you thatloneliness among seniors is just
a killer.
So any way you can create theseopportunities to improve
(22:35):
community or proximity to familyamong this population is just a
real bonus.
Stephanie Rouse (22:42):
The last section of your book is on
international housing and veryhigh level overview of each
continent.
What are some of the keylessons that we could take away
from other countries to helpwith affordability in our
housing market?
Andrew Carswell (22:54):
International housing is not my specialty,
which is why we have experts towrite about these things in the
book, but one thing that isextremely clear when you look at
the data is that I go back tothe space norm housing space and
we've just got some crazy trendlines going, and this has
international implications.
I think when you hear thatAmericans live large, that is so
(23:19):
true.
We really do live large.
We have two trends going on.
We have households that aregetting smaller, so the number
of people that live under oneroof is getting smaller, and
house sizes continue to increase, sometimes dramatically.
So, depending on which area ofthe country you're talking about
, this creates a situation wherethe average square footage per
person has just exploded in thiscountry.
(23:41):
With this extra space comesobviously higher cost.
Meanwhile, many of thecountries that you see routinely
showing up on these polls thatyou see once a year called the
happiest countries in the worldthese are your Norway's, your
Finland's, your Sweden's,probably Netherlands maybe have
much smaller square footage perperson stats.
(24:03):
Now, I realize that America's alot different from those
countries, but the point is thatyou can live happily in smaller
homes and while we're auniquely different animal from
these other places.
It might be a lesson thatdensity should not necessarily
be the boogeyman that Americansroutinely think it should be.
California gives us some hope.
(24:24):
I say this because there's anincreasingly open attitude
towards a new term which Ihadn't heard before last year or
maybe 2023, which is YIMBYism.
Yes, in my backyard it's takinghold among many Californians
because they recognize thathousing supply, availability,
affordability they're just ahuge problem out there.
(24:46):
I live in Gwinnett County,georgia.
Any day now we're going to topa million people in Gwinnett
County and I can tell you thatbuilding is going on all around
me and I cheer it every time Igo past it.
And, you know, some of it's alittle bit more dense building
too.
We need it, so I'm a bighousing supply person.
Stephanie Rouse (25:06):
Well, what's interesting about that is it
wasn't that long ago that wewere building smaller homes.
The last time we were in kindof a housing crisis, right after
World War II, we were buildingless than thousand square foot
homes that families with two,three kids were occupying, and
then it slowly changed andshifted to these mega mansions
that we need more and more space.
(25:26):
So I feel like there's anopportunity to flip back and
find some middle ground.
Andrew Carswell (25:31):
And nobody complained.
Yeah, yeah, it's just.
Americans have a long historywith open spaces and I'm sure
that's part of it and the ethosand the culture.
But you know, we can't just hita button and OK, the country's
expanded out even further.
There's some issues there.
Jennifer Hiatt (25:48):
I'm one of those people who are very grateful we
built the small houses in the1950s, because I live in a 1952,
900 square foot home and everytime I have to clean it.
I'm thoroughly surprised thatsomebody chooses to live in
anything bigger.
Andrew Carswell (26:01):
And you're probably perfectly happy too.
Jennifer Hiatt (26:03):
I'm very happy.
My neighborhood's cute andthere are two kids in a bedroom
and it's fine.
They all seem to be thriving.
Andrew Carswell (26:10):
Yep.
Jennifer Hiatt (26:11):
We're talking a lot about the housing market and
if you get on any Facebook pagethat talks about housing, you
will see a lot of thoughts andopinions.
But what do you think is thebiggest misconception that the
general public typically hasabout the housing market?
Andrew Carswell (26:25):
I'm going to start off by going a little bit
parochial here, given my NAHBbackground, and I'd just like to
say that builders anddevelopers get a bad rap.
They're considered the bad guysin the whole housing debate and
this could not be further fromthe truth.
I think progressivesparticularly the hardcore
(26:46):
progressives they take thisbanana route which is just short
for build absolutely nothinganywhere near anyone, even
well-meaning suburbanites andexurbanites.
They can go this route becausethey don't want to change their
idyllic setting.
This is not a sustainablesolution.
Over time, as a country, weneed to continue to grow
(27:06):
population to continue to be themost prosperous country in the
time.
As a country, we need tocontinue to grow population to
continue to be the mostprosperous country in the world
and if so, we need to build.
Therefore, we need builders.
I can tell you that many ofyour builders very small volume
they're local, sometimescommunity builders.
They are well integrated inthose communities and they
understand local communitiesvery well.
(27:28):
I'm almost sure.
For the average person, theyunderstand communities way
better than them and, as aresult, they're real assets to
the community.
I'd even argue that, althoughI'm not privy to their financial
statements, just fromconversations that I've had with
them.
They operate in pretty thinmargins so they're not like
Scrooge McDuff making off with alot of money in some of these
(27:49):
cases, and they operate in ahigh-risk industry too Many of
them that I know.
I talk to builders.
I used to talk to buildersevery day.
I still talk to builders a lot,Many of them pretty bipartisan,
if not apolitical.
They understand I have to be,because both Democrats and
Republicans they need housing.
They like the fact they're inthe industry where they can get
(28:12):
support from both parties.
In my nearly 25 years at theHousing Education and Research
Association, which is the groupthat helped spearhead this book,
we've had plenty of speakersfrom local communities within
the cities where we meet as agroup every year and in those
communities the ones wherebuilders and planners, where
(28:33):
they do that shocking andoutrageous thing, which is talk
to each other and work with eachother and respect each other
they seem to do just fine, andso I really hate hearing about
adversarial relationshipsbetween planners and builders.
So that's the biggestmisconception.
Stephanie Rouse (28:50):
Well, actually American Planning Association
was partnering with the realtorsand the home builders on a
national scale and havingconversations to try and work
towards solutions for thehousing markets on a national
level, and I think that's beenreally beneficial in various
states.
We're trying to kind ofreplicate those relationships on
a state level too.
Andrew Carswell (29:09):
That is so encouraging to hear it's got to
happen.
Stephanie Rouse (29:13):
So a new term for me in reading this book was
informal housing, which commonlyis known as slums.
The common response in moredeveloped nation is to clear
these out, but a few countrieshave accepted their value in
providing affordable living thatthe markets just can't create.
What should readers take awayfrom the concepts of informal
housing?
Andrew Carswell (29:34):
Yeah, in a lot of cases those markets and
countries you're referring todon't have nearly the kind of
structured finance system thatwe have and access to that is
pretty hard.
But it's a really good question.
I think I was in the same campas you 15, 20 years ago.
What is this informal housing?
The informal housing to whichyou refer is commonly referred
(29:55):
by another name, depending onthe country you're talking about
.
In Brazil it's called favelas,in Mexico it's called colonias.
But you're right that generallythese are slum-like areas.
A common denominator for a lotof them is they're usually
attached to some form ofmegacity.
Roughly 20 million or morepeople.
These are places like Sao Paulo.
(30:16):
20 million or more people.
These are places like Sao Paulo, mexico City, mumbai, lagos,
just to name a few.
The governments that run thesecities understand that, unlike
the US, employment opportunitieswithin these cities might be
the only hope for so many of itscitizens, meaning these local
economies pretty much dominatethe entire country.
As a result, their view on landownership a lot different from
(30:40):
ours.
It's a little looser than whatwe think of here in the US.
It'd be hard to think ofplanning communities here in the
US approving some of thestructures that are put on these
limited plots of land just forfear of safety concerns.
If you've ever seen them, youknow exactly what I'm talking
about.
Still, the workers need thesejobs, certainly can't afford
transportation that's anotherissue to travel into these urban
(31:03):
areas from their more ruralsettings and, as a result, it
could be considered some form ofworkforce housing in their own
right, but it's certainly not aterm that they use.
It's probably a good window,though, on how tenuous housing
situations are in those areas inparticular.
I would even add, just in myopinion, there's US poverty and
there's world poverty.
(31:23):
One of these is much worse thanthe other.
We're talking $2 a day, ifyou're lucky in some situations.
Those chapters that you'rereferring to that reference
informal housing.
They're kind of eye-openers.
Jennifer Hiatt (31:38):
I'm sure you ask this every time someone talks
to you about the book.
But what do you think the next20 years of housing is going to
look like?
Andrew Carswell (31:46):
Well, I think that I've covered some of this
ground with the responses on 3Dprinted homes.
I think that might take alittle longer than 20 years, but
I think it's on the path andsenior housing trends that we
spoke about.
I do want to take a littledifferent tack here at the
beginning, and I'm going tocuriously use Japan as an
example.
(32:06):
I'll come back to Japan in justa second, though.
The world has a big problemright now, and that's that we're
not meeting replacement levelbirth rates.
From a demographic standpoint,this has a lot of downstream
effects.
As a result, world populationis probably peak fairly soon, if
it hasn't already.
In some countries like Spainand Portugal, they're probably
(32:27):
past this point already.
If population goes down, thishas lots of bad implications for
GDP and probably the culture aswell.
But there might be a curiouseffect on housing.
Wall Street Journal I believeit was had a story a while back
on Japan, which has a heartystock of housing outside of
(32:47):
Tokyo, so much so they don'thave anybody to live in them
because of the shrinkingpopulation.
So they are throwing amazingdeals to even to foreigners to
buy some of this housing stockand help staunch some of this
problem and help revitalizethose areas.
What's to say, this couldn'thappen elsewhere.
It could.
One other thing I really want tomention here because I really
(33:10):
think it's important possiblyone of the biggest things I've
talked about yet and that's thetopic of immigration.
We actually have a good chapterin the book on immigration and
that's the topic of immigration.
We actually have a good chapterin the book on immigration.
It's called Immigration andHousing and it reflects that
immigration is actually reallygreat for housing for a few
reasons.
Each new immigrant family tothis country means a new
household created, which willeventually mean a new housing
(33:33):
unit built for that family.
Also, so many immigrants findtheir way into the construction
trade.
By and large, usually they havethe skills and work ethic that
make them valuable assets withinthat housing trade.
So there's obviously a laborcomponent to immigration as well
.
I share the belief that I firstheard from a guy named George
(33:54):
Friedman, and he's formerly ofthe Futurist group called
Stratfor, and he believes Ithink he's right that we might
be experiencing a totallydifferent attitude about
immigration over the next 20years, as opposed to maybe where
it's at right now.
That's not just here, butabroad as well.
Anti-immigration flare-upsoccur outside the US as well.
(34:15):
The reduction in populationthroughout the world means that
we'll have an even furthershortage of labor and we'll
practically be begging forimmigrant labor to come here.
So ironically this will be veryinteresting to see We'll shift
from demonizing immigrants, notjust here but throughout the
world, to competing forimmigrants to come to countries
that are hard hit by thesedeclining populations, probably
(34:39):
even to the point of driving upwages for them.
So that'd be interesting to see.
It seems like he's right onthis, but time will tell.
Last thing on forecasts for thefuture, and it may seem a little
bit like the biting the handthat feeds me, but my brother
actually teaches construction toa lot of immigrant youths and
(35:02):
young adults and he is as busyas he has ever been, and I
actually think this is anexample of trade schools and
their importance and rising upagain in importance as people
weigh the cost benefit of do Igo to college or do I go to
trade school.
This dialogue is occurring now.
I think it's going to be evenmore prevalent in the future.
(35:23):
I don't want you to alienate mycurrent employer.
I love my job, but there is aneed out there and it seems to
be a trending pattern.
Stephanie Rouse (35:31):
Well, I could see that, just with everything
that's happened this year andthe stress that all the
universities are under right nowto fill in funding gaps, and
the tuition costs are going up.
They went up here at UNL, soit's making it even easier
decision, I think, to movetowards trade school and get a
more specialized educationversus going the university
route.
Andrew Carswell (35:50):
And you can still get a great paycheck.
Yeah, I'm not naive enough tonot see that pattern and reality
coming.
Jennifer Hiatt (35:58):
So always our last question here on Booked, on
Planning Besides your book,which we recommend everyone
interested in the housing market, go pick up immediately, what
are some books that yourecommend?
Andrew Carswell (36:09):
Well, I'm going to go two for the price of one
here.
I try and make it a point to doa book review for an academic
journal every year or two.
I've recently completed one,and I'm in the process with
another that I would like toshare, the one that's completed,
a book called Mine the HiddenRules of Homeownership.
I love this book because itjust pokes holes in the belief
(36:33):
that probably originated fromour nation's founding, way back
when that strong land ownershipis one of the staples of
American culture and law andpretty much separated us from
our British forebears.
In truth, though, it's kind ofa crapshoot, depending on where
you live and the authors of thebook, whose name escapes me.
(36:56):
They highlight some prettymind-blowing examples of how
some state courts have reallytotally upended that notion, and
it's really random how courtsinterpret ownership of things,
and a very large portion of thatbook deals with housing, real
estate, land ownership, you nameit.
The authors are primarily lawprofessors, but the writing is
(37:21):
very user-friendly andentertaining and informative as
well Very informative.
I would imagine that youraudience would really enjoy it
if you could have those authorson as guests.
I think that would be a goodcall.
Now I'm currently reviewing abook that's kind of made got a
lot of buzz this year.
It's called Abund.
Reviewing a book that's kind ofmade got a lot of buzz this
year.
It's called Abundance, and it'skind of refreshing because it
(37:43):
has a lot of reference to issuesthat I think are really juicy
ones for urban planning expertsthat listen to the show.
These are things likeaffordable housing,
infrastructure, zoning reform,nimbyism, just to name a few.
It's interesting to me that itis written by a couple of
progressives who argue that thetypical reactionary methods of
(38:06):
planners to reflexively restrictpeople and their choices is
really not the way to go.
I'm still a little bit early inreading it, but it really does
sort of have a Freakonomics vibeto it and has a lot to say
about housing and planning.
Jennifer Hiatt (38:23):
I've read Abundance.
I know, stephanie, you have iton your list.
And if anybody knows, ezraKlein, we've reached out.
Andrew Carswell (38:30):
He's a tough guy.
Jennifer Hiatt (38:32):
Yeah, I don't think he'll be coming on, bucked
On Planning, but we've tried.
Andrew Carswell (38:35):
Yeah, yeah, it's a good book though.
Stephanie Rouse (38:38):
Although mine also sounds like a good book to
read too, so to add it to thelist.
Andrew Carswell (38:42):
Mine has not gotten the same kind of buzz,
but it's thoroughly entertainingreading.
Stephanie Rouse (38:47):
Well, andy, thank you for joining us to talk
about the third edition of yourbook Introduction to Housing.
Andrew Carswell (38:54):
Thank you so much for having me.
I appreciate it so much.
Jennifer Hiatt (38:57):
We hope you enjoyed this conversation with
author Andrew Carswell on hisbook Introduction to Housing,
third edition.
You can get your own copythrough the publisher at
Rutledge or, better yet, supporta local bookstore or shop
through bookshoporg.
Remember to subscribe to theshow wherever you listen to
podcasts, and please rate,review and share the show.
Thank you for listening andwe'll talk to you next time on
Book Dom Planning.
you're listening to the booked on
planning podcast, a project ofthe nebraska chapter of the
american planning association.
In each episode we dive intohow cities function by talking
with authors on housing,transportation and everything in
between.
Join us as we get Booked onPlanning.
(00:37):
Welcome back Bookworms, toanother episode of Booked on
Planning.
In this episode we talk withAndrew Carswell on his book
Introduction to Housing, thethird edition.
Along with his two co-editors,katrin Anker and Sarah Kirby,
they lay the foundations for thefield of housing, covering
everything from its history herein the US to housing trends on
each continent.
Jennifer Hiatt (00:57):
Housing really touches every part of our lives,
so it's important to have asolid understanding of what
influences the market.
An introduction to housingprovides that solid foundation
of information and I reallyappreciated that, although it is
primarily focused in the UShousing market, there are large
sections of internationalhousing as well.
It's good to know what's goingon in other countries.
Stephanie Rouse (01:17):
Exactly and take away some lessons as well.
It's clear this book makes agreat foundation for an academic
course, but I also think it's agood read for anyone whose
career doesn't focus on housingto gain a better understanding
of it.
As we talk about in the episode, housing influences economic
output and vice versa.
It's hard not to interact withhousing.
As you mentioned, it touchesevery part of our lives.
Jennifer Hiatt (01:38):
Plus, with all the fluctuation that's happening
in the housing market right now, the background of the housing
market that this book providesactually helped me be a little
more optimistic about the futureof housing overall.
Let's get into our conversationwith author Andrew Carswell on
his book.
Stephanie Rouse (01:58):
Introduction to Housing, third edition.
Andy, thank you for joining uson Booked on Planning to talk
about the third edition of yourbook, Introduction to Housing.
It's easy to see how this bookwould be used in university
programs, as it's a really greatoverview of all the various
components in the field.
How has this edition evolvedover the course of three
different writings?
Andrew Carswell (02:14):
First off, I would like to take the time to
thank you for inviting me to theprogram.
I may have mentioned thisbefore, but I found Booked On
Planning to be a really goodresource for me back in 2022
when I was studying for the AICPexam.
Since I passed it.
I'll give you guys some creditfor having done that.
(02:35):
And one other thing I do wantto mention that my two
co-editors I really would beremiss to not mention them
Katrin Aniker and Sarah Kirby,and Katrin in particular, was
the huge driving force behindassembling these contributions
and the contributors to each ofour 20-some chapters.
But back to your originalquestion.
(02:55):
We think this has potential fora lot of audiences and we sort
of take heart in the fact thatthere are a number of libraries
throughout the world that haveembraced this book in its first
and second editions, and youknow it's very new this third
edition, but we think it'sincrementally better than the
second one.
So we expect the same kind ofnumbers.
There's a pretty easilyaccessible website that
(03:18):
accumulates all the librariesthat have adopted the book and
while, yes, most of them are inuniversity settings, there are
also some that are out therethat are government agencies and
nonprofit and sometimes evenfor-profit libraries and even
public libraries that are muchmore scattered.
This kind of serves asvalidation for us that housing
(03:38):
is one of those issues thatreally permeates society.
I talk to my class a lot Imentioned that and I fervently
feel this that housing has a lotof interdisciplinary interest
in it urban planning, sociology,psychology Buying a home has a
lot of psychology attached to itand economics and business
finance.
I'm a finance major from wayback, and so you could consider
(04:02):
this one of the so-calledprimers on the subject matter,
which really just says it's apretty broad swath of housing
issues.
Jennifer Hiatt (04:08):
And I know you guys don't really talk about the
COVID market, but you startedthe book by giving an overview
of the housing landscapes asthey've existed in each of the
three editions as they werepublished, and you were, of
course, writing this during theCOVID-19 pandemic.
So what were you guys thinkingabout as you're trying to write
a book on housing, as thehousing market was going wild?
Andrew Carswell (04:28):
Well, perhaps a little bit of pretext about the
environments in the first twoeditions, because there was some
stuff going on there too.
Our first edition, which wasreleased in 2006, was pretty
much right on the heels of thehousing market of the early to
mid 2000s and there's sort oflike an increasing realization
(04:48):
that housing is more commodifiedand put in the secondary market
and heavily in the financearena.
So the time at which that bookwas pretty much hot off the
press was also the time of theburgeoning housing bubble.
It's funny to go look back onthat.
We were very proud of that book, but it was only about 12
chapters.
It's pretty skinny.
But we did have a lot ofclassroom adoptions and I want
(05:11):
to say almost three dozencolleges and universities were
repeat adopters and of course weloved that.
This gave us some sense.
We had a pretty good product,but also one that could be
improved upon.
I think we all knew that, andI'm the only consistent editor
throughout all three editions,so I was kind of right there in
the trenches for all of them.
That second edition wasnoteworthy in timing for a few
(05:32):
reasons.
The difference in timingbetween the first and second
editions was about 12 years, andwhen we approached the
publisher, we felt like therewas this real hunger out there
for even more info than theprevious version, and Katrin had
joined on by then.
Sarah did too.
As a matter of fact, thehousing crisis was over, but the
recovery period for many areasof the country was very uneven,
(05:55):
so much so that there was kindof a feeling of inequity across
the landscape, and it's beentalked about a lot in academic
circles.
You mentioned COVID.
Covid was concurrent with whenwe started the process of
getting the authors, and I wouldsay that most of the writing
for this occurred between late2020 and 2023.
So we had sort of staggeredchapters.
(06:16):
But this was an interestingtime to write chapters for a few
reasons.
Our authors, and much of thegeneral public for that matter,
were starting to realize theimportance of home is much more
than just a structure that youretreat to at the end of the day
.
For them, it was viewed as arefuge from this silent,
sinister virus that was scaringthe daylights out of people, and
(06:37):
many people realized that homecould now be viewed as their
sort of de facto officeenvironment, and the function of
homes seemed to radicallychange accordingly, and almost
overnight.
If you remember there was alsothat period of time that we had
quote unquote supply chainissues and homeowners, some of
whom needed to expand theirhomes to accommodate for extra
(06:59):
office space, were finding thatprice of lumber and other home
materials were going crazy.
I was in that camp, by the way.
This also seemed to be a timewhen some of these online sites
like Zillow and Redfin, startedto flourish.
I didn't consult with Katrinabout this, but I also think
this might have been a good timeto actually receive chapters
(07:20):
from contributors, because theywere probably bored out of their
skull from staying home andaway from campus.
Stephanie Rouse (07:27):
You brought up supply chain issues during COVID
and that really spikedconstruction costs and we all
thought you know things willlevel out, it'll go back to
normal.
But it really hasn't.
Cost of construction is stillvery high, making it really
difficult to build affordable orattainable housing, and it's
something that's permeatinglocal all the way up to federal
level.
But you note some trends inbuilding construction that have
(07:49):
helped reduce the cost of homebuilding.
Can you talk about some ofthose?
Andrew Carswell (07:53):
Yeah, I can answer this from a few
perspectives, and it goes beyondjust construction.
I think there's issues ofdemand and other sort of norm
changes in housing that areprobably worth noting.
First off, I have to sort ofhumbly submit that I was wrong
about something.
I'm not a very good soothsayeror foreseer futurist, whatever,
(08:15):
because in 2009, I first heardthe term tiny home and I just
thought it was a fad that wouldgo away.
And here we are, 15, 16 yearslater and we're still talking
about it.
We talk about housing norms inone of my classes, basically
like what society or normalperson would expect out of the
(08:38):
home.
Square footage is a very strongnorm that has been just going
up over time.
Well, the response to some ofthese price issues has been for
people to scale back some oftheir space concerns.
My colleague, kim Skoba, haswritten about this a lot.
There are some signs of hopethat tiny homes or condensed
(09:00):
neighborhoods that sort ofresemble single family have a
future and that will have someeffects on costs or help lower
costs.
There's also this concept oflean construction.
It's not really talked abouttoo much in the book but it's
worth mentioning in the contextof the question.
My colleagues at LouisianaState University, eason Namens
in particular, borrows from leanproduction techniques that are
(09:24):
utilized in Japan and otherareas that basically there's so
much waste in your landfill yournormal landfill that's
attributed to constructionactivities.
One estimate has it at 50%,which is pretty much
mind-blowing.
But there are ways of sort ofcutting down on that waste and
reducing defects in materials.
There's always been in theindustry.
(09:44):
I forgot to mention up frontthat I used to work for National
Association of Home Builders,so I get a lot of this
information from them.
There's a tendency foroverproduction of materials.
There's excessivetransportation, unnecessary idle
time during the process itself.
All this stuff can bestreamlined and that's what lean
construction sort of focuses on.
(10:05):
There's a chapter in our book onsustainable housing.
One of the better chapters andone of our housing educator
legends is a guy named JoeLaQuatra.
He's devoted a pretty largechunk of his career since
retired towards benefits ofenergy efficiency and renewable
energy, and these are all thingsthat may not necessarily be
easy to witness at the front endor the construction aspect, but
(10:28):
certainly this has lots ofimplications over the life cycle
of the home for the consumerand ultimately affects overall
affordability of housing forfamilies.
Because one little known thingthat doesn't get caught up in
the data too much but utilitiesactually are part of the bundle
of costs that are associatedwith housing, so if you think
about it from a lifespanperspective, that's a big deal.
(10:52):
One of my favorite academics andone of the authors in the book
is a guy by the name of AndrewMcCoy, and his big thing now is
on 3D printing housing.
It's not taken off like afirestorm yet, but the potential
for this is pretty incredible.
Now, the drawback of 3Dprinting housing it's not taken
off like a firestorm yet, butthe potential for this is pretty
incredible.
Now, the drawback of 3D printedhomes is that it's a pretty
capital-intensive process.
Does require some technicalskills to operate.
(11:15):
The benefits, though, are thatif this type of housing were to
take off, the economies of scalewould eventually make this a
pretty cheap way to build a home.
It would seemingly reduce thelabor component of home building
and has been shown to reducethe time to build a home by a
lot.
As we tape this right now, ahurricane is barreling down on
(11:36):
parts of the North Carolinacoast, and part of the obvious
potential for something likethat is in hurricane-affected
areas and disaster-affectedareas where you can mass produce
it.
Andrew also talks aboutdiffusion of innovations, and I
think that has a lot of costimplications.
If you can have some of thesereally cool things that are
(11:57):
being produced on the housingfront from the housing suppliers
and there's tons of them butthey take a long time to diffuse
throughout the constructionindustry there's a way to
tighten that up you can actuallyhave much more of like the
median home market to enjoythose advantages.
There's a guy that has sort ofbecome an evangelist.
(12:18):
His name's Rob Crane.
He's actually not one of ourauthors, but I really need to
mention him here.
He's a big evangelist forhousing assistance programs and
he would tell you that there areseveral down payment assistance
programs of varying forms thatconsumers just don't take
advantage of, which is kind ofmind blowing.
It's not surprising to me thatthese things exist from
(12:41):
localities and sometimes evenstates or nonprofit groups,
because they understand thathomeownership has huge community
advantages that benefit them aswell as the ultimate recipients
of that assistance.
Stephanie Rouse (12:53):
You talk about down payment assistance programs
.
We've had one for decades nowhere in the city of Lincoln and
it was a really great program.
It helped buyers that weremaking less than 80% area median
income get into their firsthome, build equity and then move
on.
Problem we're seeing lately isthat we're not finding eligible
buyers anymore.
So the program was helping over100 households a year.
(13:15):
Now we're well below thattrying to find anyone because
housing costs have gone up somuch and getting someone in
there.
We might find a way to buy downcosts with the down payment
assistance, but then theirmortgage payments are just
outstripping what they canactually afford.
So it's very complex.
Andrew Carswell (13:31):
It is.
Rob will tell you.
Some of the issues fornon-take-up is just lack of
information, but those are morestructural issues you're talking
about.
Yeah, that's got to be superfrustrating.
Jennifer Hiatt (13:44):
Staying on the theme of money, financing is
obviously an inherent part ofthe housing industry.
What impacts are you foreseeingfor the current economic
climate, which does not seem tobe letting go anytime soon, and
including inflation and thosehigh interest rates?
What are those long-termimplications for potential
homebuyers here?
Andrew Carswell (14:02):
Pretty huge.
As we sit here today, the Fedchairman has made a signal for
easing interest rates.
We're not sure if it's 25 or 50basis points, which is 0.25 to
0.50 percent.
These have big implications.
Interest rate either way canimpact housing decision for tens
(14:30):
or even hundreds of thousandsof households that might be on
the cusp of qualifying for aspecific home.
Now, just to give you anexample even your audience here.
An example current interestrates are around six and a half
percent, and if Powell were toreduce interest rates by 50
basis points, so like half apercent, the family who's
seeking a medium-priced home insome area I just basically said
(14:51):
$350,000.
With a 30-year loan, we'regoing to see their monthly
payment drop by more than $100,and this translates to about
$37,500 over the life of theloan.
I mean that's getting to besome pretty good money.
Lots of families would takethat.
We do have a problem out there,though.
We got a number of householdsthat got mortgages in the twos
(15:14):
yeah, I know, I see your handgoing up and I was that same way
and they're reluctant to leavetheir current homes because they
know they got it a little toogood, and they did with those
artificially low mortgage ratesNow 6% in the whole scope of
things from a historicalstandpoint is pretty low, but to
a whole generation of peoplenow it seems way too high for
(15:35):
them to venture into new hometerritory.
So we have a case of probablymillions of homes that are
anchored by their mortgage lock.
They don't want to leavebecause they got it too good
with that mortgage.
It's not terribly irrationalthinking from an individual
standpoint, but this has rippleeffects in that it decreases the
type of mobility that acapitalist country such as ours
(15:57):
is used to seeing andflourishing on.
From an inflation standpoint,inflation can be looked at a few
ways.
Housing inflation has been areal problem within the US.
I think nobody will disagreewith that.
It's a consistent themethroughout the book, quite
frankly.
But of course, if you are ahomeowner, you love housing
(16:18):
inflation because this meansyour equity is increasing as
well.
So this is small comfort tothose who keep getting priced
out by the increase in areahouse prices.
Regarding general inflation,let's step away from housing
inflation for a minute.
But just general inflation alsoa problem the more you pay at
(16:39):
the grocery store due to wheatshortages in Ukraine, opec price
hikes for oil and varioussupply chain issues.
There we go.
I've used supply chain twice inthis discussion.
That bottle up shipping andtransportation heck, it could be
eggs from bird flu, right?
All these things have an impacton your household budget for
(16:59):
what we call all other things,and that includes housing
payments as well.
Stephanie Rouse (17:04):
So, along those lines, can you discuss the tie
between economic productivityand housing and which is
influencing which?
Andrew Carswell (17:12):
Yes, I can, but I hope you don't think of it as
cop-out here.
It's a symbiotic relationship.
So in my housing theory classwe talk about the economic
impact of how housing can impactand affect number of jobs for a
specific type of housingdevelopment.
With some of that info that wascompiled by my former employer,
(17:33):
nahb, which was likelygenerated by some kind of
input-output fiscal impactanalysis software, we know that
for a development of 100single-family homes in a typical
local area, the local incomeeffects are tremendously high.
It generates over $20 millionfor those 100 units.
These include local businessowners' income, local wages and
(17:56):
salaries, and wages and salariesrelated to the work itself.
The number of jobs created byjust that one development is
probably around 250 or more.
This is for a typical.
I don't have a definition, bythe way, for typical, but I will
just say median average,something like that.
If you're talking aboutmultifamily, because that's for
single family I mentioned before, the number is considerably
(18:18):
less for 100 multifamily units,but it's still pretty impressive
and this is part of the reasonwhy housing is called and I drum
this into my students all thetime.
Housing and housing starts areleading economic indicators and
very closely watched.
So if you look at the type ofstats and data that's coming out
in a typical week, one of thebusiest data times, or most
(18:41):
watched, is housing starts,because what happens with them
will foretell what happens downthe road to the general economy
in about six to nine months.
Now, in the other direction,general economic productivity
well, that also affects housingfor the reverse causation part.
Basic economics pretty muchtells you that a productive
(19:02):
economy has beneficial effectsto the workers within that
economy.
Your real wage rises, which isa good thing.
That means you're outstrippinginflation.
When your real wage rises, youcan rent or buy a bigger or
better home.
Once that happens, yourresidential satisfaction likely
increases.
Once that happens, you'relikely to stay in your area
(19:24):
longer and I would argue thisultimately benefits communities.
Jennifer Hiatt (19:29):
Changing gear, getting a little bit away from
the monetary side of housing.
One of the big things thatLincoln is facing is the need
for senior housing, as manycommunities are as we get to a
graying population.
So what do you think are someof the more interesting
innovative solutions that arebeing explored to support these
senior living needs?
Andrew Carswell (19:48):
No doubt it is a big issue.
As far as the book goes, we doaddress this.
Deirdre Pfeiffer is our authoron senior housing and I think
she provides one of the mostpithy chapters on a really
highly relevant issue, given thefact that we've got in Western
world and this is spreading topretty much the entire world a
(20:10):
tremendous demographic swingthat is going on which is just,
as you said, the grain ofAmerica and society.
Quite frankly, she is kind ofthe perfect author for this
particular chapter because she'sfrom Arizona State and Arizona
is pretty much one of thefastest-growing retirement areas
(20:30):
.
As far as innovations in thedwelling itself, there's a
recognition that universaldesign housing is the way to go
for future generations.
For the listeners, it's asomewhat subtle form of design
that allows for flexibility asyou age.
Cabinets are too high so youcan seamlessly transition from
(20:51):
your 30s and 40s to a moreseasoned type of age.
The plugs are readily available, the doorways are wide enough
to accommodate wheelchairs etc.
But not makea big statement,and all without making it
obvious that an old person liveshere.
These are ways of allowingpeople to age in place within
homes where they're perfectlyhappy and they don't necessarily
(21:14):
want to leave.
I think about my own in-laws andthe situation they had where
they had to leave their home inCalifornia because it was just
too unwieldy for them, alsobeing cognizant of the fact that
planners listen to the podcast.
There are also innovativethings that they could be doing
as well.
(21:35):
In particular, I'm thinkingabout relaxing zoning for
accessory dwelling units, whichsometimes are just converted
garages that could accommodateaging parents to live on the
same property as their adultchildren while still maintaining
some privacy and dignity in theprocess.
There's some resistance to thatin some communities.
Athens, georgia, where I'm atright now, has had their own
(21:56):
sort of experiment with thisthing and it didn't necessarily
go great.
They relaxed restrictions onthat and ultimately, a lot of
people wound up using it forstudent housing.
So there's that.
Stephanie Rouse (22:11):
That's the biggest fear here in Lincoln too
.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andrew Carswell (22:14):
College towns.
It is what it is and you knowjust a shout out to our folks at
we have an excellent Instituteof Gerontology here in UGA and I
know the folks there very well.
They will tell you thatloneliness among seniors is just
a killer.
So any way you can create theseopportunities to improve
(22:35):
community or proximity to familyamong this population is just a
real bonus.
Stephanie Rouse (22:42):
The last section of your book is on
international housing and veryhigh level overview of each
continent.
What are some of the keylessons that we could take away
from other countries to helpwith affordability in our
housing market?
Andrew Carswell (22:54):
International housing is not my specialty,
which is why we have experts towrite about these things in the
book, but one thing that isextremely clear when you look at
the data is that I go back tothe space norm housing space and
we've just got some crazy trendlines going, and this has
international implications.
I think when you hear thatAmericans live large, that is so
(23:19):
true.
We really do live large.
We have two trends going on.
We have households that aregetting smaller, so the number
of people that live under oneroof is getting smaller, and
house sizes continue to increase, sometimes dramatically.
So, depending on which area ofthe country you're talking about
, this creates a situation wherethe average square footage per
person has just exploded in thiscountry.
(23:41):
With this extra space comesobviously higher cost.
Meanwhile, many of thecountries that you see routinely
showing up on these polls thatyou see once a year called the
happiest countries in the worldthese are your Norway's, your
Finland's, your Sweden's,probably Netherlands maybe have
much smaller square footage perperson stats.
(24:03):
Now, I realize that America's alot different from those
countries, but the point is thatyou can live happily in smaller
homes and while we're auniquely different animal from
these other places.
It might be a lesson thatdensity should not necessarily
be the boogeyman that Americansroutinely think it should be.
California gives us some hope.
(24:24):
I say this because there's anincreasingly open attitude
towards a new term which Ihadn't heard before last year or
maybe 2023, which is YIMBYism.
Yes, in my backyard it's takinghold among many Californians
because they recognize thathousing supply, availability,
affordability they're just ahuge problem out there.
(24:46):
I live in Gwinnett County,georgia.
Any day now we're going to topa million people in Gwinnett
County and I can tell you thatbuilding is going on all around
me and I cheer it every time Igo past it.
And, you know, some of it's alittle bit more dense building
too.
We need it, so I'm a bighousing supply person.
Stephanie Rouse (25:06):
Well, what's interesting about that is it
wasn't that long ago that wewere building smaller homes.
The last time we were in kindof a housing crisis, right after
World War II, we were buildingless than thousand square foot
homes that families with two,three kids were occupying, and
then it slowly changed andshifted to these mega mansions
that we need more and more space.
(25:26):
So I feel like there's anopportunity to flip back and
find some middle ground.
Andrew Carswell (25:31):
And nobody complained.
Yeah, yeah, it's just.
Americans have a long historywith open spaces and I'm sure
that's part of it and the ethosand the culture.
But you know, we can't just hita button and OK, the country's
expanded out even further.
There's some issues there.
Jennifer Hiatt (25:48):
I'm one of those people who are very grateful we
built the small houses in the1950s, because I live in a 1952,
900 square foot home and everytime I have to clean it.
I'm thoroughly surprised thatsomebody chooses to live in
anything bigger.
Andrew Carswell (26:01):
And you're probably perfectly happy too.
Jennifer Hiatt (26:03):
I'm very happy.
My neighborhood's cute andthere are two kids in a bedroom
and it's fine.
They all seem to be thriving.
Andrew Carswell (26:10):
Yep.
Jennifer Hiatt (26:11):
We're talking a lot about the housing market and
if you get on any Facebook pagethat talks about housing, you
will see a lot of thoughts andopinions.
But what do you think is thebiggest misconception that the
general public typically hasabout the housing market?
Andrew Carswell (26:25):
I'm going to start off by going a little bit
parochial here, given my NAHBbackground, and I'd just like to
say that builders anddevelopers get a bad rap.
They're considered the bad guysin the whole housing debate and
this could not be further fromthe truth.
I think progressivesparticularly the hardcore
(26:46):
progressives they take thisbanana route which is just short
for build absolutely nothinganywhere near anyone, even
well-meaning suburbanites andexurbanites.
They can go this route becausethey don't want to change their
idyllic setting.
This is not a sustainablesolution.
Over time, as a country, weneed to continue to grow
(27:06):
population to continue to be themost prosperous country in the
time.
As a country, we need tocontinue to grow population to
continue to be the mostprosperous country in the world
and if so, we need to build.
Therefore, we need builders.
I can tell you that many ofyour builders very small volume
they're local, sometimescommunity builders.
They are well integrated inthose communities and they
understand local communitiesvery well.
(27:28):
I'm almost sure.
For the average person, theyunderstand communities way
better than them and, as aresult, they're real assets to
the community.
I'd even argue that, althoughI'm not privy to their financial
statements, just fromconversations that I've had with
them.
They operate in pretty thinmargins so they're not like
Scrooge McDuff making off with alot of money in some of these
(27:49):
cases, and they operate in ahigh-risk industry too Many of
them that I know.
I talk to builders.
I used to talk to buildersevery day.
I still talk to builders a lot,Many of them pretty bipartisan,
if not apolitical.
They understand I have to be,because both Democrats and
Republicans they need housing.
They like the fact they're inthe industry where they can get
(28:12):
support from both parties.
In my nearly 25 years at theHousing Education and Research
Association, which is the groupthat helped spearhead this book,
we've had plenty of speakersfrom local communities within
the cities where we meet as agroup every year and in those
communities the ones wherebuilders and planners, where
(28:33):
they do that shocking andoutrageous thing, which is talk
to each other and work with eachother and respect each other
they seem to do just fine, andso I really hate hearing about
adversarial relationshipsbetween planners and builders.
So that's the biggestmisconception.
Stephanie Rouse (28:50):
Well, actually American Planning Association
was partnering with the realtorsand the home builders on a
national scale and havingconversations to try and work
towards solutions for thehousing markets on a national
level, and I think that's beenreally beneficial in various
states.
We're trying to kind ofreplicate those relationships on
a state level too.
Andrew Carswell (29:09):
That is so encouraging to hear it's got to
happen.
Stephanie Rouse (29:13):
So a new term for me in reading this book was
informal housing, which commonlyis known as slums.
The common response in moredeveloped nation is to clear
these out, but a few countrieshave accepted their value in
providing affordable living thatthe markets just can't create.
What should readers take awayfrom the concepts of informal
housing?
Andrew Carswell (29:34):
Yeah, in a lot of cases those markets and
countries you're referring todon't have nearly the kind of
structured finance system thatwe have and access to that is
pretty hard.
But it's a really good question.
I think I was in the same campas you 15, 20 years ago.
What is this informal housing?
The informal housing to whichyou refer is commonly referred
(29:55):
by another name, depending onthe country you're talking about
.
In Brazil it's called favelas,in Mexico it's called colonias.
But you're right that generallythese are slum-like areas.
A common denominator for a lotof them is they're usually
attached to some form ofmegacity.
Roughly 20 million or morepeople.
These are places like Sao Paulo.
(30:16):
20 million or more people.
These are places like Sao Paulo, mexico City, mumbai, lagos,
just to name a few.
The governments that run thesecities understand that, unlike
the US, employment opportunitieswithin these cities might be
the only hope for so many of itscitizens, meaning these local
economies pretty much dominatethe entire country.
As a result, their view on landownership a lot different from
(30:40):
ours.
It's a little looser than whatwe think of here in the US.
It'd be hard to think ofplanning communities here in the
US approving some of thestructures that are put on these
limited plots of land just forfear of safety concerns.
If you've ever seen them, youknow exactly what I'm talking
about.
Still, the workers need thesejobs, certainly can't afford
transportation that's anotherissue to travel into these urban
(31:03):
areas from their more ruralsettings and, as a result, it
could be considered some form ofworkforce housing in their own
right, but it's certainly not aterm that they use.
It's probably a good window,though, on how tenuous housing
situations are in those areas inparticular.
I would even add, just in myopinion, there's US poverty and
there's world poverty.
(31:23):
One of these is much worse thanthe other.
We're talking $2 a day, ifyou're lucky in some situations.
Those chapters that you'rereferring to that reference
informal housing.
They're kind of eye-openers.
Jennifer Hiatt (31:38):
I'm sure you ask this every time someone talks
to you about the book.
But what do you think the next20 years of housing is going to
look like?
Andrew Carswell (31:46):
Well, I think that I've covered some of this
ground with the responses on 3Dprinted homes.
I think that might take alittle longer than 20 years, but
I think it's on the path andsenior housing trends that we
spoke about.
I do want to take a littledifferent tack here at the
beginning, and I'm going tocuriously use Japan as an
example.
(32:06):
I'll come back to Japan in justa second, though.
The world has a big problemright now, and that's that we're
not meeting replacement levelbirth rates.
From a demographic standpoint,this has a lot of downstream
effects.
As a result, world populationis probably peak fairly soon, if
it hasn't already.
In some countries like Spainand Portugal, they're probably
(32:27):
past this point already.
If population goes down, thishas lots of bad implications for
GDP and probably the culture aswell.
But there might be a curiouseffect on housing.
Wall Street Journal I believeit was had a story a while back
on Japan, which has a heartystock of housing outside of
(32:47):
Tokyo, so much so they don'thave anybody to live in them
because of the shrinkingpopulation.
So they are throwing amazingdeals to even to foreigners to
buy some of this housing stockand help staunch some of this
problem and help revitalizethose areas.
What's to say, this couldn'thappen elsewhere.
It could.
One other thing I really want tomention here because I really
(33:10):
think it's important possiblyone of the biggest things I've
talked about yet and that's thetopic of immigration.
We actually have a good chapterin the book on immigration and
that's the topic of immigration.
We actually have a good chapterin the book on immigration.
It's called Immigration andHousing and it reflects that
immigration is actually reallygreat for housing for a few
reasons.
Each new immigrant family tothis country means a new
household created, which willeventually mean a new housing
(33:33):
unit built for that family.
Also, so many immigrants findtheir way into the construction
trade.
By and large, usually they havethe skills and work ethic that
make them valuable assets withinthat housing trade.
So there's obviously a laborcomponent to immigration as well
.
I share the belief that I firstheard from a guy named George
(33:54):
Friedman, and he's formerly ofthe Futurist group called
Stratfor, and he believes Ithink he's right that we might
be experiencing a totallydifferent attitude about
immigration over the next 20years, as opposed to maybe where
it's at right now.
That's not just here, butabroad as well.
Anti-immigration flare-upsoccur outside the US as well.
(34:15):
The reduction in populationthroughout the world means that
we'll have an even furthershortage of labor and we'll
practically be begging forimmigrant labor to come here.
So ironically this will be veryinteresting to see We'll shift
from demonizing immigrants, notjust here but throughout the
world, to competing forimmigrants to come to countries
that are hard hit by thesedeclining populations, probably
(34:39):
even to the point of driving upwages for them.
So that'd be interesting to see.
It seems like he's right onthis, but time will tell.
Last thing on forecasts for thefuture, and it may seem a little
bit like the biting the handthat feeds me, but my brother
actually teaches construction toa lot of immigrant youths and
(35:02):
young adults and he is as busyas he has ever been, and I
actually think this is anexample of trade schools and
their importance and rising upagain in importance as people
weigh the cost benefit of do Igo to college or do I go to
trade school.
This dialogue is occurring now.
I think it's going to be evenmore prevalent in the future.
(35:23):
I don't want you to alienate mycurrent employer.
I love my job, but there is aneed out there and it seems to
be a trending pattern.
Stephanie Rouse (35:31):
Well, I could see that, just with everything
that's happened this year andthe stress that all the
universities are under right nowto fill in funding gaps, and
the tuition costs are going up.
They went up here at UNL, soit's making it even easier
decision, I think, to movetowards trade school and get a
more specialized educationversus going the university
route.
Andrew Carswell (35:50):
And you can still get a great paycheck.
Yeah, I'm not naive enough tonot see that pattern and reality
coming.
Jennifer Hiatt (35:58):
So always our last question here on Booked, on
Planning Besides your book,which we recommend everyone
interested in the housing market, go pick up immediately, what
are some books that yourecommend?
Andrew Carswell (36:09):
Well, I'm going to go two for the price of one
here.
I try and make it a point to doa book review for an academic
journal every year or two.
I've recently completed one,and I'm in the process with
another that I would like toshare, the one that's completed,
a book called Mine the HiddenRules of Homeownership.
I love this book because itjust pokes holes in the belief
(36:33):
that probably originated fromour nation's founding, way back
when that strong land ownershipis one of the staples of
American culture and law andpretty much separated us from
our British forebears.
In truth, though, it's kind ofa crapshoot, depending on where
you live and the authors of thebook, whose name escapes me.
(36:56):
They highlight some prettymind-blowing examples of how
some state courts have reallytotally upended that notion, and
it's really random how courtsinterpret ownership of things,
and a very large portion of thatbook deals with housing, real
estate, land ownership, you nameit.
The authors are primarily lawprofessors, but the writing is
(37:21):
very user-friendly andentertaining and informative as
well Very informative.
I would imagine that youraudience would really enjoy it
if you could have those authorson as guests.
I think that would be a goodcall.
Now I'm currently reviewing abook that's kind of made got a
lot of buzz this year.
It's called Abund.
Reviewing a book that's kind ofmade got a lot of buzz this
year.
It's called Abundance, and it'skind of refreshing because it
(37:43):
has a lot of reference to issuesthat I think are really juicy
ones for urban planning expertsthat listen to the show.
These are things likeaffordable housing,
infrastructure, zoning reform,nimbyism, just to name a few.
It's interesting to me that itis written by a couple of
progressives who argue that thetypical reactionary methods of
(38:06):
planners to reflexively restrictpeople and their choices is
really not the way to go.
I'm still a little bit early inreading it, but it really does
sort of have a Freakonomics vibeto it and has a lot to say
about housing and planning.
Jennifer Hiatt (38:23):
I've read Abundance.
I know, stephanie, you have iton your list.
And if anybody knows, ezraKlein, we've reached out.
Andrew Carswell (38:30):
He's a tough guy.
Jennifer Hiatt (38:32):
Yeah, I don't think he'll be coming on, bucked
On Planning, but we've tried.
Andrew Carswell (38:35):
Yeah, yeah, it's a good book though.
Stephanie Rouse (38:38):
Although mine also sounds like a good book to
read too, so to add it to thelist.
Andrew Carswell (38:42):
Mine has not gotten the same kind of buzz,
but it's thoroughly entertainingreading.
Stephanie Rouse (38:47):
Well, andy, thank you for joining us to talk
about the third edition of yourbook Introduction to Housing.
Andrew Carswell (38:54):
Thank you so much for having me.
I appreciate it so much.
Jennifer Hiatt (38:57):
We hope you enjoyed this conversation with
author Andrew Carswell on hisbook Introduction to Housing,
third edition.
You can get your own copythrough the publisher at
Rutledge or, better yet, supporta local bookstore or shop
through bookshoporg.
Remember to subscribe to theshow wherever you listen to
podcasts, and please rate,review and share the show.
Thank you for listening andwe'll talk to you next time on
Book Dom Planning.
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