Booked on Planning

Introduction to Housing

• Booked on Planning • Season 4 • Episode 14

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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.

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Stephanie Rouse:

you're listening to the booked on planning podcast, a project of the nebraska chapter of the american planning association. In each episode we dive into how cities function by talking with authors on housing, transportation and everything in between. Join us as we get Booked on Planning. Welcome back Bookworms, to another episode of Booked on Planning. In this episode we talk with Andrew Carswell on his book Introduction to Housing, the third edition. Along with his two co-editors, katrin Anker and Sarah Kirby, they lay the foundations for the field of housing, covering everything from its history here in the US to housing trends on each continent.

Jennifer Hiatt:

Housing really touches every part of our lives, so it's important to have a solid understanding of what influences the market. An introduction to housing provides that solid foundation of information and I really appreciated that, although it is primarily focused in the US housing market, there are large sections of international housing as well. It's good to know what's going on in other countries.

Stephanie Rouse:

Exactly and take away some lessons as well. It's clear this book makes a great foundation for an academic course, but I also think it's a good read for anyone whose career doesn't focus on housing to 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 with housing. As you mentioned, it touches every part of our lives.

Jennifer Hiatt:

Plus, with all the fluctuation that's happening in the housing market right now, the background of the housing market that this book provides actually helped me be a little more optimistic about the future of housing overall. Let's get into our conversation with author Andrew Carswell on his book.

Stephanie Rouse:

Introduction to Housing, third edition. Andy, thank you for joining us on Booked on Planning to talk about the third edition of your book, Introduction to Housing. It's easy to see how this book would be used in university programs, as it's a really great overview of all the various components in the field. How has this edition evolved over the course of three different writings?

Andrew Carswell:

First off, I would like to take the time to thank you for inviting me to the program. I may have mentioned this before, but I found Booked On Planning to be a really good resource for me back in 2022 when I was studying for the AICP exam. Since I passed it. I'll give you guys some credit for having done that. And one other thing I do want to mention that my two co-editors I really would be remiss to not mention them Katrin Aniker and Sarah Kirby, and Katrin in particular, was the huge driving force behind assembling these contributions and the contributors to each of our 20-some chapters.

Andrew Carswell:

But back to your original question.

Andrew Carswell:

We think this has potential for a lot of audiences and we sort of take heart in the fact that there are a number of libraries throughout the world that have embraced this book in its first and second editions, and you know it's very new this third edition, but we think it's incrementally better than the second one.

Andrew Carswell:

So we expect the same kind of numbers. There's a pretty easily accessible website that accumulates all the libraries that have adopted the book and while, yes, most of them are in university settings, there are also some that are out there that are government agencies and nonprofit and sometimes even for-profit libraries and even public libraries that are much more scattered. This kind of serves as validation for us that housing is one of those issues that really permeates society. I talk to my class a lot I mentioned that and I fervently feel this that housing has a lot of interdisciplinary interest in it urban planning, sociology, psychology Buying a home has a lot of psychology attached to it and economics and business finance. I'm a finance major from way back, and so you could consider this one of the so-called primers on the subject matter, which really just says it's a pretty broad swath of housing issues.

Jennifer Hiatt:

And I know you guys don't really talk about the COVID market, but you started the book by giving an overview of the housing landscapes as they've existed in each of the three editions as they were published, and you were, of course, writing this during the COVID-19 pandemic. So what were you guys thinking about as you're trying to write a book on housing, as the housing market was going wild?

Andrew Carswell:

Well, perhaps a little bit of pretext about the environments in the first two editions, because there was some stuff going on there too. Our first edition, which was released in 2006, was pretty much right on the heels of the housing market of the early to mid 2000s and there's sort of like an increasing realization that housing is more commodified and put in the secondary market and heavily in the finance arena. So the time at which that book was pretty much hot off the press was also the time of the burgeoning housing bubble. It's funny to go look back on that. We were very proud of that book, but it was only about 12 chapters. It's pretty skinny. But we did have a lot of classroom adoptions and I want to say almost three dozen colleges and universities were repeat adopters and of course we loved 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, and I'm the only consistent editor throughout all three editions, so I was kind of right there in the trenches for all of them.

Andrew Carswell:

That second edition was noteworthy in timing for a few reasons. The difference in timing between the first and second editions was about 12 years, and when we approached the publisher, we felt like there was this real hunger out there for even more info than the previous version, and Katrin had joined on by then. Sarah did too. As a matter of fact, the housing crisis was over, but the recovery period for many areas of the country was very uneven, so much so that there was kind of a feeling of inequity across the landscape, and it's been talked about a lot in academic circles. You mentioned COVID.

Andrew Carswell:

Covid was concurrent with when we started the process of getting the authors, and I would say that most of the writing for this occurred between late 2020 and 2023. So we had sort of staggered chapters. But this was an interesting time to write chapters for a few reasons. Our authors, and much of the general public for that matter, were starting to realize the importance of home is much more than just a structure that you retreat to at the end of the day.

Andrew Carswell:

For them, it was viewed as a refuge from this silent, sinister virus that was scaring the daylights out of people, and many people realized that home could now be viewed as their sort of de facto office environment, and the function of homes seemed to radically change accordingly, and almost overnight. If you remember there was also that period of time that we had quote unquote supply chain issues and homeowners, some of whom needed to expand their homes to accommodate for extra office space, were finding that price of lumber and other home materials were going crazy. I was in that camp, by the way. This also seemed to be a time when some of these online sites like Zillow and Redfin, started to flourish. I didn't consult with Katrin about this, but I also think this might have been a good time to actually receive chapters from contributors, because they were probably bored out of their skull from staying home and away from campus.

Stephanie Rouse:

You brought up supply chain issues during COVID and that really spiked construction costs and we all thought you know things will level out, it'll go back to normal. But it really hasn't. Cost of construction is still very high, making it really difficult to build affordable or attainable housing, and it's something that's permeating local all the way up to federal level. But you note some trends in building construction that have helped reduce the cost of home building. Can you talk about some of those?

Andrew Carswell:

Yeah, I can answer this from a few perspectives, and it goes beyond just construction. I think there's issues of demand and other sort of norm changes in housing that are probably worth noting. First off, I have to sort of humbly submit that I was wrong about something. I'm not a very good soothsayer or foreseer futurist, whatever, because in 2009, I first heard the term tiny home and I just thought it was a fad that would go away. And here we are, 15, 16 years later and we're still talking about it. We talk about housing norms in one of my classes, basically like what society or normal person would expect out of the home. Square footage is a very strong norm that has been just going up over time. Well, the response to some of these price issues has been for people to scale back some of their space concerns. My colleague, kim Skoba, has written about this a lot. There are some signs of hope that tiny homes or condensed neighborhoods that sort of resemble single family have a future and that will have some effects on costs or help lower costs.

Andrew Carswell:

There's also this concept of lean construction. It's not really talked about too much in the book but it's worth mentioning in the context of the question. My colleagues at Louisiana State University, eason Namens in particular, borrows from lean production techniques that are utilized in Japan and other areas that basically there's so much waste in your landfill your normal landfill that's attributed to construction activities. One estimate has it at 50%, which is pretty much mind-blowing. But there are ways of sort of cutting down on that waste and reducing defects in materials. There's always been in the industry. I forgot to mention up front that I used to work for National Association of Home Builders, so I get a lot of this information from them. There's a tendency for overproduction of materials. There's excessive transportation, unnecessary idle time during the process itself. All this stuff can be streamlined and that's what lean construction sort of focuses on.

Andrew Carswell:

There's a chapter in our book on sustainable housing. One of the better chapters and one of our housing educator legends is a guy named Joe LaQuatra. He's devoted a pretty large chunk of his career since retired towards benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy, and these are all things that may not necessarily be easy to witness at the front end or the construction aspect, but certainly this has lots of implications over the life cycle of the home for the consumer and ultimately affects overall affordability of housing for families. Because one little known thing that doesn't get caught up in the data too much but utilities actually are part of the bundle of costs that are associated with housing, so if you think about it from a lifespan perspective, that's a big deal.

Andrew Carswell:

One of my favorite academics and one of the authors in the book is a guy by the name of Andrew McCoy, and his big thing now is on 3D printing housing. It's not taken off like a firestorm yet, but the potential for this is pretty incredible. Now, the drawback of 3D printing housing it's not taken off like a firestorm yet, but the potential for this is pretty incredible. Now, the drawback of 3D printed homes is that it's a pretty capital-intensive process. Does require some technical skills to operate. The benefits, though, are that if this type of housing were to take off, the economies of scale would eventually make this a pretty cheap way to build a home. It would seemingly reduce the labor component of home building and has been shown to reduce the time to build a home by a lot.

Andrew Carswell:

As we tape this right now, a hurricane is barreling down on parts of the North Carolina coast, and part of the obvious potential for something like that is in hurricane-affected areas and disaster-affected areas where you can mass produce it.

Andrew Carswell:

Andrew also talks about diffusion of innovations, and I think that has a lot of cost implications. If you can have some of these really cool things that are being produced on the housing front from the housing suppliers and there's tons of them but they take a long time to diffuse throughout the construction industry there's a way to tighten that up you can actually have much more of like the median home market to enjoy those advantages. There's a guy that has sort of become an evangelist. His name's Rob Crane. He's actually not one of our authors, but I really need to mention him here. He's a big evangelist for housing assistance programs and he would tell you that there are several down payment assistance programs of varying forms that consumers just don't take advantage of, which is kind of mind blowing. It's not surprising to me that these things exist from localities and sometimes even states or nonprofit groups, because they understand that homeownership has huge community advantages that benefit them as well as the ultimate recipients of that assistance.

Stephanie Rouse:

You talk about down payment assistance programs. We've had one for decades now here in the city of Lincoln and it was a really great program. It helped buyers that were making less than 80% area median income get into their first home, build equity and then move on. Problem we're seeing lately is that we're not finding eligible buyers anymore. So the program was helping over 100 households a year. Now we're well below that trying to find anyone because housing costs have gone up so much and getting someone in there. We might find a way to buy down costs with the down payment assistance, but then their mortgage payments are just outstripping what they can actually afford. So it's very complex.

Andrew Carswell:

It is. Rob will tell you. Some of the issues for non-take-up is just lack of information, but those are more structural issues you're talking about. Yeah, that's got to be super frustrating.

Jennifer Hiatt:

Staying on the theme of money, financing is obviously an inherent part of the housing industry. What impacts are you foreseeing for the current economic climate, which does not seem to be letting go anytime soon, and including inflation and those high interest rates? What are those long-term implications for potential homebuyers here?

Andrew Carswell:

Pretty huge. As we sit here today, the Fed chairman has made a signal for easing interest rates. We're not sure if it's 25 or 50 basis points, which is 0.25 to 0.50 percent. These have big implications. Interest rate either way can impact housing decision for tens or even hundreds of thousands of households that might be on the cusp of qualifying for a specific home. Now, just to give you an example even your audience here. An example current interest rates are around six and a half percent, and if Powell were to reduce interest rates by 50 basis points, so like half a percent, the family who's seeking a medium-priced home in some area I just basically said $350,000. With a 30-year loan, we're going to see their monthly payment drop by more than $100, and this translates to about $37,500 over the life of the loan. I mean that's getting to be some pretty good money. Lots of families would take that. We do have a problem out there, though. We got a number of households that got mortgages in the twos yeah, I know, I see your hand going up and I was that same way and they're reluctant to leave their current homes because they know they got it a little too good, and they did with those artificially low mortgage rates Now 6% in the whole scope of things from a historical standpoint is pretty low, but to a whole generation of people now it seems way too high for them to venture into new home territory. So we have a case of probably millions of homes that are anchored by their mortgage lock. They don't want to leave because they got it too good with that mortgage. It's not terribly irrational thinking from an individual standpoint, but this has ripple effects in that it decreases the type of mobility that a capitalist country such as ours is used to seeing and flourishing on.

Andrew Carswell:

From an inflation standpoint, inflation can be looked at a few ways. Housing inflation has been a real problem within the US. I think nobody will disagree with that. It's a consistent theme throughout the book, quite frankly. But of course, if you are a homeowner, you love housing inflation because this means your equity is increasing as well. So this is small comfort to those who keep getting priced out by the increase in area house prices. Regarding general inflation, let's step away from housing inflation for a minute. But just general inflation also a problem the more you pay at the grocery store due to wheat shortages in Ukraine, opec price hikes for oil and various supply chain issues. There we go. I've used supply chain twice in this discussion. That bottle up shipping and transportation heck, it could be eggs from bird flu, right? All these things have an impact on your household budget for what we call all other things, and that includes housing payments as well.

Stephanie Rouse:

So, along those lines, can you discuss the tie between economic productivity and housing and which is influencing which?

Andrew Carswell:

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 class we talk about the economic impact of how housing can impact and affect number of jobs for a specific type of housing development. With some of that info that was compiled by my former employer, nahb, which was likely generated by some kind of input-output fiscal impact analysis software, we know that for a development of 100 single-family homes in a typical local area, the local income effects are tremendously high. It generates over $20 million for those 100 units. These include local business owners' income, local wages and salaries, and wages and salaries related to the work itself. The number of jobs created by just that one development is probably around 250 or more. This is for a typical. I don't have a definition, by the way, for typical, but I will just say median average, something like that. If you're talking about multifamily, because that's for single family I mentioned before, the number is considerably less for 100 multifamily units, but it's still pretty impressive and this is part of the reason why housing is called and I drum this into my students all the time.

Andrew Carswell:

Housing and housing starts are leading economic indicators and very closely watched. So if you look at the type of stats and data that's coming out in a typical week, one of the busiest data times, or most watched, is housing starts, because what happens with them will foretell what happens down the road to the general economy in about six to nine months. Now, in the other direction, general economic productivity well, that also affects housing for the reverse causation part. Basic economics pretty much tells you that a productive economy has beneficial effects to the workers within that economy. Your real wage rises, which is a good thing. That means you're outstripping inflation. When your real wage rises, you can rent or buy a bigger or better home. Once that happens, your residential satisfaction likely increases. Once that happens, you're likely to stay in your area longer and I would argue this ultimately benefits communities.

Jennifer Hiatt:

Changing gear, getting a little bit away from the monetary side of housing. One of the big things that Lincoln is facing is the need for senior housing, as many communities are as we get to a graying population. So what do you think are some of the more interesting innovative solutions that are being explored to support these senior living needs?

Andrew Carswell:

No doubt it is a big issue. As far as the book goes, we do address this. Deirdre Pfeiffer is our author on senior housing and I think she provides one of the most pithy chapters on a really highly relevant issue, given the fact that we've got in Western world and this is spreading to pretty much the entire world a tremendous demographic swing that is going on which is just, as you said, the grain of America and society. Quite frankly, she is kind of the perfect author for this particular chapter because she's from Arizona State and Arizona is pretty much one of the fastest-growing retirement areas.

Andrew Carswell:

As far as innovations in the dwelling itself, there's a recognition that universal design housing is the way to go for future generations. For the listeners, it's a somewhat subtle form of design that allows for flexibility as you age. Cabinets are too high so you can seamlessly transition from your 30s and 40s to a more seasoned 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 lives here. These are ways of allowing people to age in place within homes where they're perfectly happy and they don't necessarily want to leave.

Andrew Carswell:

I think about my own in-laws and the situation they had where they had to leave their home in California because it was just too unwieldy for them, also being cognizant of the fact that planners listen to the podcast. There are also innovative things that they could be doing as well. In particular, I'm thinking about relaxing zoning for accessory dwelling units, which sometimes are just converted garages that could accommodate aging parents to live on the same property as their adult children while still maintaining some privacy and dignity in the process. There's some resistance to that in some communities. Athens, georgia, where I'm at right now, has had their own sort of experiment with this thing and it didn't necessarily go great. They relaxed restrictions on that and ultimately, a lot of people wound up using it for student housing. So there's that.

Stephanie Rouse:

That's the biggest fear here in Lincoln too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Carswell:

College towns. It is what it is and you know just a shout out to our folks at we have an excellent Institute of Gerontology here in UGA and I know the folks there very well. They will tell you that loneliness among seniors is just a killer. So any way you can create these opportunities to improve community or proximity to family among this population is just a real bonus.

Stephanie Rouse:

The last section of your book is on international housing and very high level overview of each continent. What are some of the key lessons that we could take away from other countries to help with affordability in our housing market?

Andrew Carswell:

International housing is not my specialty, which is why we have experts to write about these things in the book, but one thing that is extremely clear when you look at the data is that I go back to the space norm housing space and we've just got some crazy trend lines going, and this has international implications. I think when you hear that Americans live large, that is so true. We really do live large. We have two trends going on. We have households that are getting smaller, so the number of people that live under one roof is getting smaller, and house sizes continue to increase, sometimes dramatically. So, depending on which area of the country you're talking about, this creates a situation where the average square footage per person has just exploded in this country. With this extra space comes obviously higher cost. Meanwhile, many of the countries that you see routinely showing up on these polls that you see once a year called the happiest countries in the world these are your Norway's, your Finland's, your Sweden's, probably Netherlands maybe have much smaller square footage per person stats. Now, I realize that America's a lot different from those countries, but the point is that you can live happily in smaller homes and while we're a uniquely different animal from these other places. It might be a lesson that density should not necessarily be the boogeyman that Americans routinely think it should be.

Andrew Carswell:

California gives us some hope. I say this because there's an increasingly open attitude towards a new term which I hadn't heard before last year or maybe 2023, which is YIMBYism. Yes, in my backyard it's taking hold among many Californians because they recognize that housing supply, availability, affordability they're just a huge problem out there. I live in Gwinnett County, georgia. Any day now we're going to top a million people in Gwinnett County and I can tell you that building is going on all around me and I cheer it every time I go past it. And, you know, some of it's a little bit more dense building too. We need it, so I'm a big housing supply person.

Stephanie Rouse:

Well, what's interesting about that is it wasn't that long ago that we were building smaller homes. The last time we were in kind of a housing crisis, right after World War II, we were building less than thousand square foot homes that families with two, three kids were occupying, and then it slowly changed and shifted to these mega mansions that we need more and more space. So I feel like there's an opportunity to flip back and find some middle ground.

Andrew Carswell:

And nobody complained. Yeah, yeah, it's just. Americans have a long history with open spaces and I'm sure that's part of it and the ethos and the culture. But you know, we can't just hit a button and OK, the country's expanded out even further. There's some issues there.

Jennifer Hiatt:

I'm one of those people who are very grateful we built the small houses in the 1950s, because I live in a 1952, 900 square foot home and every time I have to clean it. I'm thoroughly surprised that somebody chooses to live in anything bigger.

Andrew Carswell:

And you're probably perfectly happy too.

Jennifer Hiatt:

I'm very happy. My neighborhood's cute and there are two kids in a bedroom and it's fine. They all seem to be thriving.

Andrew Carswell:

Yep.

Jennifer Hiatt:

We're talking a lot about the housing market and if you get on any Facebook page that talks about housing, you will see a lot of thoughts and opinions. But what do you think is the biggest misconception that the general public typically has about the housing market?

Andrew Carswell:

I'm going to start off by going a little bit parochial here, given my NAHB background, and I'd just like to say that builders and developers get a bad rap. They're considered the bad guys in the whole housing debate and this could not be further from the truth. I think progressives particularly the hardcore progressives they take this banana route which is just short for build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone, even well-meaning suburbanites and exurbanites. They can go this route because they don't want to change their idyllic setting. This is not a sustainable solution. Over time, as a country, we need to continue to grow population to continue to be the most prosperous country in the time. As a country, we need to continue to grow population to continue to be the most prosperous country in the world and if so, we need to build. Therefore, we need builders. I can tell you that many of your builders very small volume they're local, sometimes community builders. They are well integrated in those communities and they understand local communities very well. I'm almost sure. For the average person, they understand communities way better than them and, as a result, they're real assets to the community. I'd even argue that, although I'm not privy to their financial statements, just from conversations that I've had with them. They operate in pretty thin margins so they're not like Scrooge McDuff making off with a lot of money in some of these cases, and they operate in a high-risk industry too Many of them that I know.

Andrew Carswell:

I talk to builders. I used to talk to builders every 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 in the industry where they can get support from both parties. In my nearly 25 years at the Housing Education and Research Association, which is the group that helped spearhead this book, we've had plenty of speakers from local communities within the cities where we meet as a group every year and in those communities the ones where builders and planners, where they do that shocking and outrageous thing, which is talk to each other and work with each other and respect each other they seem to do just fine, and so I really hate hearing about adversarial relationships between planners and builders. So that's the biggest misconception.

Stephanie Rouse:

Well, actually American Planning Association was partnering with the realtors and the home builders on a national scale and having conversations to try and work towards solutions for the housing markets on a national level, and I think that's been really beneficial in various states. We're trying to kind of replicate those relationships on a state level too.

Andrew Carswell:

That is so encouraging to hear it's got to happen.

Stephanie Rouse:

So a new term for me in reading this book was informal housing, which commonly is known as slums. The common response in more developed nation is to clear these out, but a few countries have accepted their value in providing affordable living that the markets just can't create. What should readers take away from the concepts of informal housing?

Andrew Carswell:

Yeah, in a lot of cases those markets and countries you're referring to don't have nearly the kind of structured finance system that we have and access to that is pretty hard. But it's a really good question. I think I was in the same camp as you 15, 20 years ago. What is this informal housing? The informal housing to which you refer is commonly referred by another name, depending on the country you're talking about. In Brazil it's called favelas, in Mexico it's called colonias. But you're right that generally these are slum-like areas. A common denominator for a lot of them is they're usually attached to some form of megacity. Roughly 20 million or more people. These are places like Sao Paulo. 20 million or more people. These are places like Sao Paulo, mexico City, mumbai, lagos, just to name a few.

Andrew Carswell:

The governments that run these cities understand that, unlike the US, employment opportunities within these cities might be the only hope for so many of its citizens, meaning these local economies pretty much dominate the entire country. As a result, their view on land ownership a lot different from ours. It's a little looser than what we think of here in the US. It'd be hard to think of planning communities here in the US approving some of the structures that are put on these limited plots of land just for fear of safety concerns. If you've ever seen them, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Andrew Carswell:

Still, the workers need these jobs, certainly can't afford transportation that's another issue to travel into these urban areas from their more rural settings and, as a result, it could be considered some form of workforce housing in their own right, but it's certainly not a term that they use. It's probably a good window, though, on how tenuous housing situations are in those areas in particular. I would even add, just in my opinion, there's US poverty and there's world poverty. One of these is much worse than the other. We're talking $2 a day, if you're lucky in some situations. Those chapters that you're referring to that reference informal housing. They're kind of eye-openers.

Jennifer Hiatt:

I'm sure you ask this every time someone talks to you about the book. But what do you think the next 20 years of housing is going to look like?

Andrew Carswell:

Well, I think that I've covered some of this ground with the responses on 3D printed homes. I think that might take a little longer than 20 years, but I think it's on the path and senior housing trends that we spoke about. I do want to take a little different tack here at the beginning, and I'm going to curiously use Japan as an example. I'll come back to Japan in just a second, though. The world has a big problem right now, and that's that we're not meeting replacement level birth rates. From a demographic standpoint, this has a lot of downstream effects. As a result, world population is probably peak fairly soon, if it hasn't already. In some countries like Spain and Portugal, they're probably past this point already. If population goes down, this has lots of bad implications for GDP and probably the culture as well. But there might be a curious effect on housing. Wall Street Journal I believe it was had a story a while back on Japan, which has a hearty stock of housing outside of Tokyo, so much so they don't have anybody to live in them because of the shrinking population. So they are throwing amazing deals to even to foreigners to buy some of this housing stock and help staunch some of this problem and help revitalize those areas. What's to say, this couldn't happen elsewhere. It could.

Andrew Carswell:

One other thing I really want to mention here because I really think it's important possibly one of the biggest things I've talked about yet and that's the topic of immigration. We actually have a good chapter in the book on immigration and that's the topic of immigration. We actually have a good chapter in the book on immigration. It's called Immigration and Housing and it reflects that immigration is actually really great for housing for a few reasons. Each new immigrant family to this country means a new household created, which will eventually mean a new housing unit built for that family. Also, so many immigrants find their way into the construction trade. By and large, usually they have the skills and work ethic that make them valuable assets within that housing trade. So there's obviously a labor component to immigration as well.

Andrew Carswell:

I share the belief that I first heard from a guy named George Friedman, and he's formerly of the Futurist group called Stratfor, and he believes I think he's right that we might be experiencing a totally different attitude about immigration over the next 20 years, as opposed to maybe where it's at right now. That's not just here, but abroad as well. Anti-immigration flare-ups occur outside the US as well. The reduction in population throughout the world means that we'll have an even further shortage of labor and we'll practically be begging for immigrant labor to come here. So ironically this will be very interesting to see We'll shift from demonizing immigrants, not just here but throughout the world, to competing for immigrants to come to countries that are hard hit by these declining populations, probably even to the point of driving up wages for them. So that'd be interesting to see. It seems like he's right on this, but time will tell.

Andrew Carswell:

Last thing on forecasts for the future, and it may seem a little bit like the biting the hand that feeds me, but my brother actually teaches construction to a lot of immigrant youths and young adults and he is as busy as he has ever been, and I actually think this is an example of trade schools and their importance and rising up again in importance as people weigh the cost benefit of do I go to college or do I go to trade school. This dialogue is occurring now. I think it's going to be even more prevalent in the future. I don't want you to alienate my current employer. I love my job, but there is a need out there and it seems to be a trending pattern.

Stephanie Rouse:

Well, I could see that, just with everything that's happened this year and the stress that all the universities are under right now to fill in funding gaps, and the tuition costs are going up. They went up here at UNL, so it's making it even easier decision, I think, to move towards trade school and get a more specialized education versus going the university route.

Andrew Carswell:

And you can still get a great paycheck. Yeah, I'm not naive enough to not see that pattern and reality coming.

Jennifer Hiatt:

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 you recommend?

Andrew Carswell:

Well, I'm going to go two for the price of one here. I try and make it a point to do a 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 to share, the one that's completed, a book called Mine the Hidden Rules of Homeownership. I love this book because it just pokes holes in the belief that probably originated from our nation's founding, way back when that strong land ownership is one of the staples of American culture and law and pretty much separated us from our British forebears. In truth, though, it's kind of a crapshoot, depending on where you live and the authors of the book, whose name escapes me. They highlight some pretty mind-blowing examples of how some state courts have really totally upended that notion, and it's really random how courts interpret ownership of things, and a very large portion of that book deals with housing, real estate, land ownership, you name it. The authors are primarily law professors, but the writing is very user-friendly and entertaining and informative as well Very informative. I would imagine that your audience would really enjoy it if you could have those authors on as guests. I think that would be a good call.

Andrew Carswell:

Now I'm currently reviewing a book that's kind of made got a lot of buzz this year. It's called Abund. Reviewing a book that's kind of made got a lot of buzz this year. It's called Abundance, and it's kind of refreshing because it has a lot of reference to issues that I think are really juicy ones for urban planning experts that listen to the show. These are things like affordable housing, infrastructure, zoning reform, nimbyism, just to name a few. It's interesting to me that it is written by a couple of progressives who argue that the typical reactionary methods of planners to reflexively restrict people and their choices is really not the way to go. I'm still a little bit early in reading it, but it really does sort of have a Freakonomics vibe to it and has a lot to say about housing and planning.

Jennifer Hiatt:

I've read Abundance. I know, stephanie, you have it on your list. And if anybody knows, ezra Klein, we've reached out.

Andrew Carswell:

He's a tough guy.

Jennifer Hiatt:

Yeah, I don't think he'll be coming on, bucked On Planning, but we've tried.

Andrew Carswell:

Yeah, yeah, it's a good book though.

Stephanie Rouse:

Although mine also sounds like a good book to read too, so to add it to the list.

Andrew Carswell:

Mine has not gotten the same kind of buzz, but it's thoroughly entertaining reading.

Stephanie Rouse:

Well, andy, thank you for joining us to talk about the third edition of your book Introduction to Housing.

Andrew Carswell:

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it so much.

Jennifer Hiatt:

We hope you enjoyed this conversation with author Andrew Carswell on his book Introduction to Housing, third edition. You can get your own copy through the publisher at Rutledge or, better yet, support a local bookstore or shop through bookshoporg. Remember to subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and please rate, review and share the show. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time on Book Dom Planning.

People on this episode

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Jennifer Hiatt

Co-host
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Stephanie Rouse, AICP

Co-host