Housing costs have consumed an entire generation. Rents are up, prices are up, and the dream of owning a home feels further away than it ever has.
But why? The answer isn't as simple as greedy landlords or low interest rates. It's a story that goes back decades, with zoning laws written to keep people out, construction costs that never came down, local politics that made building almost impossible, and a financial system that turned homes into investment vehicles instead of places to live.
This episode traces how we got here.
Trail Mix – Episode 1: Why Is Housing So Expensive?
We explore the invisible systems behind America's housing crisis — tracing it from a 1915 skyscraper shadow in Manhattan to the broken market of today.
Topics Covered:
- The Equitable Building (1915) — How a 40-story skyscraper in Lower Manhattan cast a 7-acre shadow and helped trigger the first citywide zoning code in the US
- The 1916 NYC Zoning Resolution — The marriage of downtown real estate interests and Fifth Avenue luxury retailers that created building setbacks and use separation
- Harland Bartholomew — The college dropout who became America's most influential city planner, writing zoning codes for 550 cities that entrenched single-family zoning and, explicitly early on, racial segregation
- The 30-Year Fixed Mortgage — How the FHA (1934), post-WWII GI demand, and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac turned every homeowner into a leveraged speculator — and why this product barely exists outside the US
- The State of the Market (2024) — Income needed to buy a median home jumped 50% from 2021 to 2024; the average first-time buyer is now 35; 22 million renter households are cost-burdened; the US is short ~4 million homes
- The Labyrinth — Why "by right" development has nearly disappeared, how discretionary approval lets NIMBYs block housing, and why future tenants are never in the room
- The Asset-Utility Paradox — The core contradiction: housing cannot simultaneously be affordable shelter and an appreciating investment asset
- Minneapolis as a Case Study — In 2018, Minneapolis eliminated single-family zoning citywide; by 2023, rents stayed flat while the rest of the country spiked
Key Takeaway: The housing crisis isn't caused by greed or interest rates alone — it's the result of century-old zoning laws, a uniquely American mortgage product, and a structural incentive for existing homeowners to block new supply.
