Much of the debate about housing shortages and rising housing costs focuses on single-family housing as the main culprit. But could it also be part of the solution?

Kate Wagner considers whether single-family homes really deserve all the blame they receive for the housing crisis in many American cities. Discussions about solutions focus on upzoning and increasing housing supply or instituting policies to ensure affordable housing.
"But the debate also raises larger questions about single-family homes: What is their value in this current political moment? And is it immoral for us to keep building them?" asks Wagner.
She argues that the diversity of single-family homes makes it difficult to understand them as one category, housing for one family or household. "Some single-family houses have history, but little economic value; some have economic value but little history," notes Wagner.
Wagner also believes that these homes are not solely the cause of crises like gentrification and climate change. "That many existing single-family homes could be densified by adding accessory dwelling units or by breaking them up into apartments makes it impossible to see single-family homes as either purely good or purely bad—or to ignore their potential to address some of the problems we face."
FULL STORY: Should we still be building single-family homes?

Manufactured Crisis: Losing the Nation’s Largest Source of Unsubsidized Affordable Housing
Manufactured housing communities have long been an affordable housing option for millions of people living in the U.S., but that affordability is disappearing rapidly. How did we get here?

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Americans are moving a lot less than they once did, and that is a problem. While Yoni Applebaum, in his highly-publicized article Stuck, gets the reasons badly wrong, it's still important to ask: why are we moving so much less than before?

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San Diego School District Approves Affordable Housing Plan
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A lawsuit brought by local lawmakers and community groups claims the plan failed to conduct a comprehensive environmental review.
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