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Fixer-Upper: How to Repair America's Broken Housing Systems
Practical ideas to provide affordable housing to more Americans
Much ink has been spilled in recent years talking about political divides and inequality in the United States. But these discussions too often miss one of the most important factors in the divisions among the fundamentally unequal nature of the nation's housing systems. Financially well-off Americans can afford comfortable, stable homes in desirable communities. Millions of other Americans cannot.
And this divide deepens other inequalities. Increasingly, important life outcomes--performance in school, employment, even life expectancy--are determined by where people live and the quality of homes they live in.
Unequal housing systems didn't just emerge from natural economic and social forces. Public policies enacted by federal, state, and local governments helped create and reinforce the bad housing outcomes endured by too many people. Taxes, zoning, institutional discrimination, and the location and quality of schools, roads, public transit, and other public services are among the policies that created inequalities in the nation's housing patterns.
Fixer-Upper is the first book assessing how the broad set of local, state, and national housing policies affect people and communities. It does more than describe how yesterday's policies led to today's problems. It proposes practical policy changes than can make stable, decent-quality housing more available and affordable for all Americans in all communities.
Fixing systemic problems that arose over decades won't be easy, in large part because millions of middle-class Americans benefit from the current system and feel threatened by potential changes. But Fixer-Upper suggests ideas for building political coalitions among diverse groups that share common interests in putting better housing within reach for more Americans, building a more equitable and healthy country.
Much ink has been spilled in recent years talking about political divides and inequality in the United States. But these discussions too often miss one of the most important factors in the divisions among the fundamentally unequal nature of the nation's housing systems. Financially well-off Americans can afford comfortable, stable homes in desirable communities. Millions of other Americans cannot.
And this divide deepens other inequalities. Increasingly, important life outcomes--performance in school, employment, even life expectancy--are determined by where people live and the quality of homes they live in.
Unequal housing systems didn't just emerge from natural economic and social forces. Public policies enacted by federal, state, and local governments helped create and reinforce the bad housing outcomes endured by too many people. Taxes, zoning, institutional discrimination, and the location and quality of schools, roads, public transit, and other public services are among the policies that created inequalities in the nation's housing patterns.
Fixer-Upper is the first book assessing how the broad set of local, state, and national housing policies affect people and communities. It does more than describe how yesterday's policies led to today's problems. It proposes practical policy changes than can make stable, decent-quality housing more available and affordable for all Americans in all communities.
Fixing systemic problems that arose over decades won't be easy, in large part because millions of middle-class Americans benefit from the current system and feel threatened by potential changes. But Fixer-Upper suggests ideas for building political coalitions among diverse groups that share common interests in putting better housing within reach for more Americans, building a more equitable and healthy country.
210 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
March 4, 2022
This is a really solid comprehensive proposal to fix the many, many things wrong with the nation’s housing systems. It provided very clear and easy to understand diagnoses of the various problems with similarly clear solutions.
It does stay safely in the policy world, without getting much into the flavor of housing policy stories and debates, and a lack of that “color” was the only thing I thought the book was really missing. However, as an extensive policy memo it’s incredibly helpful.
If there is one thing I hope my fellow local politics people will take away from this book, it’s that public enemy number one is exclusionary zoning. Upzone, upzone, upzone.
It does stay safely in the policy world, without getting much into the flavor of housing policy stories and debates, and a lack of that “color” was the only thing I thought the book was really missing. However, as an extensive policy memo it’s incredibly helpful.
If there is one thing I hope my fellow local politics people will take away from this book, it’s that public enemy number one is exclusionary zoning. Upzone, upzone, upzone.
April 2, 2022
This book is a good, accessible summary of the problems with the broken housing system in the US—and particularly our shortage of housing in in-demand areas—combined with a series of policy proposals to help remedy the situation. While I am too much of an insider to this topic to really be the intended audience of this book, I still did learn some things from it, and I really appreciated the discussion of the need for both more housing construction and work to subsidize housing for low-income populations.
August 10, 2022
This was a good solid introduction to the US housing crisis and housing policy. It covered not only our severe shortfall in building housing for the last 40 years but also how increasing the supply of housing, while essential, is not enough for the poorest 20% of our population.
Each chapter was clearly broken into clearly labeled subsections. I also appreciated how clear Schuetz was separating what were federal vs state vs local solutions.
Each chapter was clearly broken into clearly labeled subsections. I also appreciated how clear Schuetz was separating what were federal vs state vs local solutions.
July 28, 2023
This was an interesting and important read, though at times infuriating bc our housing policy seems so backwards and the author explains it so clearly. I wish I had read this in conjunction with a class, bc she breezed by some things that take me a couple reads to understand. That said, it was overall a really accessible and straightforward explanation of the critically important topic of housing policy.
June 9, 2022
Not making any particularly new or interesting insights. If you even sort of follow small-case P 'progressive' housing or zoning issues you will have read all of this before. On the other hand, if this is your introduction, you could probably find a more readable place to start. The book is fine, it's not bad, I just am not sure what its purpose was.
July 28, 2022
Solid, evidence-based proposals for fixing America's broking housing system.
Read
January 30, 2024Very enlightening
March 31, 2024
I appreciate the thoughtful, comprehensive, solutions driven nature of this book. A well done introduction to the world of housing and land use infrastructure, policy, issues, and possibilities.
May 3, 2024
This is not the book I thought I was getting, but it’s the one I bought. That’s on me. For what it was it was informative and thorough, taking a complex topic (housing reform) and bringing down to a digestible level. I do think the author was a bit to redundant in some of their points, many of the sections and ideas naturally bleed together and the various points could have likely been covered in a couple dozen less pages. However; it covered a lot of problems and possible solutions in a relatively succinct manner and should receive some praise for that.
December 23, 2025
I guess I’m too inundated with data from Twitter and other blog posts but this book was a great distillation of points I’ve already heard. Thanks to the author for compiling my views on our housing system - although they didn’t rail against NIMBYism enough, hah!
August 10, 2022
Affordable housing advocates are probably cheering the positions and suggestions put forward in this book that looks to level the playing field for housing across America.
Owners of single-family homes in quiet, leafy neighborhoods are probably aghast and revolted by the positions and suggestions put forward in this book. There are many for them to latch onto, from upzoning to allow ADU's (additional dwelling units per lot), to eliminating the mortgage interest deduction, to increasing taxes on lower density zones, adding subsidies for low-income families by increasing taxes on wealthier ones, and more.
The author methodically ticks off the various Federal, State and local actions that would bring benefits to various constituencies but fails to give equal time to the negative impacts resulting on existing, established communities. There are plenty of examples, but none are revealed.
Nonetheless, this book's line of reasoning is gaining traction on the west coast and is spreading. After all, who doesn't support affordable housing?
Owners of single-family homes in quiet, leafy neighborhoods are probably aghast and revolted by the positions and suggestions put forward in this book. There are many for them to latch onto, from upzoning to allow ADU's (additional dwelling units per lot), to eliminating the mortgage interest deduction, to increasing taxes on lower density zones, adding subsidies for low-income families by increasing taxes on wealthier ones, and more.
The author methodically ticks off the various Federal, State and local actions that would bring benefits to various constituencies but fails to give equal time to the negative impacts resulting on existing, established communities. There are plenty of examples, but none are revealed.
Nonetheless, this book's line of reasoning is gaining traction on the west coast and is spreading. After all, who doesn't support affordable housing?
March 6, 2022
Fixer-Upper : How to Repair America’s Broken Housing Systems (2022) by Jenny Schuetz adds to the books on housing affordability and other perceived problems with housing. Dr Schuetz has a PhD from Harvard and was an economist with the Fed and now works for the Brookings Institute.
Schuetz sees housing as being at the center of many issues. As well as affordability being an issue Schuetz also sees housing as tool that can help with equity, racial issues and climate change.
Early on in the book it’s acknowledged that most families can afford housing in much of the US. Schuetz is well aware that much of middle America has affordable housing. She also points out that zoning stops housing being built in US cities with a high cost of living. The book doesn’t suggest turning toward a Houston style lack of zoning.
The book indicates that more money from US car transport should be directed toward transit. No mention is made of how transit systems in the US cost far more to run than they get from fares where as car transport is far closer to having no subsidy.
The book suggests how zoning can be altered by state and possibly the Federal government. Schuetz refers admiringly to changes in zoning in Minnesota and changes in California. There are also a plethora of policy recommendations made about housing.
Fixer-Upper is well written and fairly easy to read. It provides a good summary of many US housing problems.
Schuetz sees housing as being at the center of many issues. As well as affordability being an issue Schuetz also sees housing as tool that can help with equity, racial issues and climate change.
Early on in the book it’s acknowledged that most families can afford housing in much of the US. Schuetz is well aware that much of middle America has affordable housing. She also points out that zoning stops housing being built in US cities with a high cost of living. The book doesn’t suggest turning toward a Houston style lack of zoning.
The book indicates that more money from US car transport should be directed toward transit. No mention is made of how transit systems in the US cost far more to run than they get from fares where as car transport is far closer to having no subsidy.
The book suggests how zoning can be altered by state and possibly the Federal government. Schuetz refers admiringly to changes in zoning in Minnesota and changes in California. There are also a plethora of policy recommendations made about housing.
Fixer-Upper is well written and fairly easy to read. It provides a good summary of many US housing problems.
September 16, 2022
I‘ll caveat that I got the audiobook which was horribly narrated. It sounded like Alexa or Siri was reading to you which is a shame because I listened to an interview with the author and she would have done a great job.
I’m not particularly wonky but I felt the book was a pretty shallow overview of housing issues and policy. I don’t feel like I learned much. And the author discusses MA, NY, and CA over and over, with an emphasis on Boston. I think she mentions these are states where housing shortages are most acute but it really glosses over much of the country. The book would have been well-served by giving examples of places where housing is being addressed positively. But maybe there aren’t any…
I’m not particularly wonky but I felt the book was a pretty shallow overview of housing issues and policy. I don’t feel like I learned much. And the author discusses MA, NY, and CA over and over, with an emphasis on Boston. I think she mentions these are states where housing shortages are most acute but it really glosses over much of the country. The book would have been well-served by giving examples of places where housing is being addressed positively. But maybe there aren’t any…
April 17, 2022
Quick, breezy, but still reasonably comprehensive guide to US housing policy. If you are broadly acquainted with housing supply problems in in-demand US cities, a lot of this will feel familiar.
But it’s really useful to have all that accumulated knowledge, and related background on housing vouchers and climate impacts of different housing styles and tenant protections and mortgage policy all in one concise volume. I’ve been reading about these issues for years but still learned a lot about impact fees and flood insurance, for instance.
If you have a friend or family member who hates cities or is fighting a development in their town or city, this is the one book I’d give them.
But it’s really useful to have all that accumulated knowledge, and related background on housing vouchers and climate impacts of different housing styles and tenant protections and mortgage policy all in one concise volume. I’ve been reading about these issues for years but still learned a lot about impact fees and flood insurance, for instance.
If you have a friend or family member who hates cities or is fighting a development in their town or city, this is the one book I’d give them.
July 10, 2022
Clear, concise, and reasonably comprehensive introduction to modern housing policy. Drew out some contours I was unfamiliar with, but doesn't really dig into any particular facet.
The authors chooses to narrate policy ramifications, only rarely offering firm numbers or quantifying the impacts, which is reasonable given how fragmented and heterogeneous the numbers/costs are. But it makes the narrative fairly abstracted, and likely unconvincing to the uninitiated.
The authors chooses to narrate policy ramifications, only rarely offering firm numbers or quantifying the impacts, which is reasonable given how fragmented and heterogeneous the numbers/costs are. But it makes the narrative fairly abstracted, and likely unconvincing to the uninitiated.
February 5, 2024
I heard Schuetz on The Ezra Kline Show and became interested in her book. It is a short and clear introduction to housing problems with suggested solutions, but it was so dry and impersonal, I found it hard to retain any information. Additionally, there wasn't much info on what you can do as a regular citizen who is not directly involved in governance.
October 28, 2022
This book is a pretty solid introduction to the current state of discourse among liberal urbanists. Schuetz provides a strong basic rundown of housing and land use economics but only gives serious consideration to proposals that have currency among market-oriented liberals.
She spells out one of the fundamental problems facing American cities today in clear terms. Demand for housing is growing in many large metro areas as labor markets boom with higher-wage workers. But land is inherently scarce and you can't just make more of it in places you want; in a market system areas with high demand for land will always have high prices. This pushes out lower-income people who can't afford these prices, leaving them gouged by rents, in low quality housing, homeless, or pushed outwards to low-density suburbs with long commutes. This problem can be mitigated by increasing density, spreading the high cost of land across many renters occupying the same amount of space, but this solution is hindered by affluent homeowners who regard their homes as a financial investment and resist expansions of supply that may lower the values of their homes. These preferences have made it into the zoning codes of many cities, which make it illegal to build higher-density housing in some areas.
Schuetz admits that while the zoning problem is a primary cause of the affordable housing shortage in large coastal metros, this is not applicable to other cities across the U.S. and changing zoning codes will not solve the whole problem. Growing economic inequality leaves at least 10 million renters paying more than half their income in rent and new market-rate housing isn't likely to rectify this. There are federal HUD vouchers available, but only a fixed amount rather than an amount tied to need as with federal entitlement programs. Schuetz proposes downward income redistribution through expansions of federal programs like the EITC and CTC and suggests a universal basic income. This is odd considering that in a market system, transfers of fixed amounts would be insufficient to get everyone housed. Prices would still rise and developers would still target higher-income clientele while gouging and exploiting the rest. This is not how you ensure a right to housing, which is what Schuetz says she is trying to do.
The main solution Schuetz is side-stepping here is public housing. This is a solution that would offer protection to tenants and fully insulate housing supply from the oscillations of the market (interesting that Schuetz points out the year-by-year variations in rental prices are a problem for renters but not for homeowners due to fixed-rate mortgages, but she never offers a solution to target this inequity). Light appears briefly through the cracks when she outlines some statistics that no doubt would shock most Americans: 40% of French renters live in public housing, 80% of all housing in Singapore is built by the government, and 66% of housing in Vienna is rent-regulated, either privately owned, cooperative, or public (p 78-79). Schuetz dismisses these facts with the wave of a hand by saying that these places have unique histories that we would be unlikely to replicate in the U.S. She is effectively stating we are doomed to capitalist hell forever here and surrendering to the white supremacist forces who have created our dismal situation.
This blinkered focus on market half-solutions, and fixation on the problems of coastal cities at the expense of the rest of the country are typical of the "Yes in My Backyard" (YIMBY) crowd she describes in the last chapter, who alienate the non-coastal and non-affluent for precisely these reasons. In her more expansive focus and attention to economic inequality, Schuetz is more thoughtful than the ones who try to argue zoning reform will fix affordable housing crises in the Midwest and apply their analysis of San Francisco to everywhere else, but she falls into many similar traps.
There is some good information here about some nitty-gritty stuff I hadn't thought about before, like the limited capacity of some small-city governments to reform zoning policy and the use of "impact fees" charged to developers and "fiscal zoning" to fund local infrastructure, and the ways these can distort development and raise housing prices. I learned some new terms like "infill" and "greenfields". She makes a good point about how growth in certain areas forms a virtuous circle with a greater tax base and better public services, which reverses with population outflows. It was good to see climate change given a decent treatment here since it really is so central to housing and urban planning and other authors do not seem to consider these intersections much. Proposals for transit-oriented development, greater density, and hiking insurance rates for development in climate-vulnerable areas are most welcome. Other of Schuetz' solutions are less than inspiring, like when she advocates special savings accounts and "baby bonds" to decenter housing as a source of wealth, are less inspiring. Schuetz has written a solid overview here, but it runs up against serious limits in its failure to escape neoliberal logics of the market and individualism.
She spells out one of the fundamental problems facing American cities today in clear terms. Demand for housing is growing in many large metro areas as labor markets boom with higher-wage workers. But land is inherently scarce and you can't just make more of it in places you want; in a market system areas with high demand for land will always have high prices. This pushes out lower-income people who can't afford these prices, leaving them gouged by rents, in low quality housing, homeless, or pushed outwards to low-density suburbs with long commutes. This problem can be mitigated by increasing density, spreading the high cost of land across many renters occupying the same amount of space, but this solution is hindered by affluent homeowners who regard their homes as a financial investment and resist expansions of supply that may lower the values of their homes. These preferences have made it into the zoning codes of many cities, which make it illegal to build higher-density housing in some areas.
Schuetz admits that while the zoning problem is a primary cause of the affordable housing shortage in large coastal metros, this is not applicable to other cities across the U.S. and changing zoning codes will not solve the whole problem. Growing economic inequality leaves at least 10 million renters paying more than half their income in rent and new market-rate housing isn't likely to rectify this. There are federal HUD vouchers available, but only a fixed amount rather than an amount tied to need as with federal entitlement programs. Schuetz proposes downward income redistribution through expansions of federal programs like the EITC and CTC and suggests a universal basic income. This is odd considering that in a market system, transfers of fixed amounts would be insufficient to get everyone housed. Prices would still rise and developers would still target higher-income clientele while gouging and exploiting the rest. This is not how you ensure a right to housing, which is what Schuetz says she is trying to do.
The main solution Schuetz is side-stepping here is public housing. This is a solution that would offer protection to tenants and fully insulate housing supply from the oscillations of the market (interesting that Schuetz points out the year-by-year variations in rental prices are a problem for renters but not for homeowners due to fixed-rate mortgages, but she never offers a solution to target this inequity). Light appears briefly through the cracks when she outlines some statistics that no doubt would shock most Americans: 40% of French renters live in public housing, 80% of all housing in Singapore is built by the government, and 66% of housing in Vienna is rent-regulated, either privately owned, cooperative, or public (p 78-79). Schuetz dismisses these facts with the wave of a hand by saying that these places have unique histories that we would be unlikely to replicate in the U.S. She is effectively stating we are doomed to capitalist hell forever here and surrendering to the white supremacist forces who have created our dismal situation.
This blinkered focus on market half-solutions, and fixation on the problems of coastal cities at the expense of the rest of the country are typical of the "Yes in My Backyard" (YIMBY) crowd she describes in the last chapter, who alienate the non-coastal and non-affluent for precisely these reasons. In her more expansive focus and attention to economic inequality, Schuetz is more thoughtful than the ones who try to argue zoning reform will fix affordable housing crises in the Midwest and apply their analysis of San Francisco to everywhere else, but she falls into many similar traps.
There is some good information here about some nitty-gritty stuff I hadn't thought about before, like the limited capacity of some small-city governments to reform zoning policy and the use of "impact fees" charged to developers and "fiscal zoning" to fund local infrastructure, and the ways these can distort development and raise housing prices. I learned some new terms like "infill" and "greenfields". She makes a good point about how growth in certain areas forms a virtuous circle with a greater tax base and better public services, which reverses with population outflows. It was good to see climate change given a decent treatment here since it really is so central to housing and urban planning and other authors do not seem to consider these intersections much. Proposals for transit-oriented development, greater density, and hiking insurance rates for development in climate-vulnerable areas are most welcome. Other of Schuetz' solutions are less than inspiring, like when she advocates special savings accounts and "baby bonds" to decenter housing as a source of wealth, are less inspiring. Schuetz has written a solid overview here, but it runs up against serious limits in its failure to escape neoliberal logics of the market and individualism.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 16, 2022
Fixer-Upper is well written and is an easy, quick read. Anyone interested in America’s affordable housing crisis should read this book as it will leave you with a basic synopsis.
August 1, 2023
3.5 stars
September 6, 2023
This is an essential read for all planning and zoning commissioners, all elected representatives, all urban planners, and everyone who is *seriously* interested in affordable housing. You have to be pretty serious to get through this book because it is very dense, wonky, and bone-dry. (What's funny is one of the cover reviews says the book "proves policy is not always dry," and I'm like, what have you been reading that makes this seem not-dry??) I made so many notes that I practically re-wrote the book. Then I ordered two more copies to share with my fellow P&Z commissioners and hopefully a few county councilors. And, my friends, it is not a cheap book. But Schuetz knows what she is talking about: it's worth it.
Schuetz came to my attention through a few podcast interviews she did, one with Ezra Klein and another with Russ Roberts, both of which I highly recommend to everyone, not just those obsessed with housing. (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...) In these podcasts, she gives a nice overview of her main thesis, which is that housing is so expensive because we have terrible policies that make it that way—and we can undo those policies. We can replace those policies with ones that favor housing supply and affordability. There are so many policies (the bad ones, the good ones) that I can't possibly enumerate them all, but her three most important ones are:
-Change zoning to legalize far more housing. We've had a century of exclusionary housing that's virtually eliminated affordable housing in cities. These policies were dreamed up by (and currently supported by) wealthy white homeowners, who need to lose their disproportionate power.
-Change housing subsidies. There will always be a number of people who can't afford market-rate housing, no matter how much of it is built, so we need a robust set of housing subsidies to ensure all Americans have access to safe, reliable, affordable shelter in decent locations. LIHTC housing (the closest thing we have to public housing, it's complicated) has a lot of downsides. The housing voucher program hold more promise but is full of problems that need to be patched up. There are more. It's not a mystery which subsidies work, and we should demand our politicians fix this system.
-Change the tax structure. Schuetz doesn't lean as heavily on this in the book as she does in her other work for Brookings, but she favors a split-rate property tax, similar to a land-tax but more politically feasible. You want to tax land, not structures, is the idea. The system we have now rewards people who happened to get their hands on land and are enriching themselves without providing any public good. The current, bad system rewards land speculators especially—people who buy properties and let them sit empty on the assumption that they will always accrue in value. A land tax would encourage landowners to do something with the land: make it housing, make it commercial, sell it to a city to make it a park. If you're in a city with a very tight housing market but empty homes or office buildings that landlords are just sitting on, this policy should appeal to you.
I may come back with more policies as I think of them and want to solidify them for myself and others, but those are what she calls the "three-legged stool" of essential policies that will fix our broken housing system.
Schuetz came to my attention through a few podcast interviews she did, one with Ezra Klein and another with Russ Roberts, both of which I highly recommend to everyone, not just those obsessed with housing. (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...) In these podcasts, she gives a nice overview of her main thesis, which is that housing is so expensive because we have terrible policies that make it that way—and we can undo those policies. We can replace those policies with ones that favor housing supply and affordability. There are so many policies (the bad ones, the good ones) that I can't possibly enumerate them all, but her three most important ones are:
-Change zoning to legalize far more housing. We've had a century of exclusionary housing that's virtually eliminated affordable housing in cities. These policies were dreamed up by (and currently supported by) wealthy white homeowners, who need to lose their disproportionate power.
-Change housing subsidies. There will always be a number of people who can't afford market-rate housing, no matter how much of it is built, so we need a robust set of housing subsidies to ensure all Americans have access to safe, reliable, affordable shelter in decent locations. LIHTC housing (the closest thing we have to public housing, it's complicated) has a lot of downsides. The housing voucher program hold more promise but is full of problems that need to be patched up. There are more. It's not a mystery which subsidies work, and we should demand our politicians fix this system.
-Change the tax structure. Schuetz doesn't lean as heavily on this in the book as she does in her other work for Brookings, but she favors a split-rate property tax, similar to a land-tax but more politically feasible. You want to tax land, not structures, is the idea. The system we have now rewards people who happened to get their hands on land and are enriching themselves without providing any public good. The current, bad system rewards land speculators especially—people who buy properties and let them sit empty on the assumption that they will always accrue in value. A land tax would encourage landowners to do something with the land: make it housing, make it commercial, sell it to a city to make it a park. If you're in a city with a very tight housing market but empty homes or office buildings that landlords are just sitting on, this policy should appeal to you.
I may come back with more policies as I think of them and want to solidify them for myself and others, but those are what she calls the "three-legged stool" of essential policies that will fix our broken housing system.
August 1, 2023
Even though I am a homeowner, and thus in theory safely insulated from the vicissitudes of America’s housing affordability crisis, I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to ignore how expensive housing has become. I am a firm believer in what economists Sam Bowman and Ben Southwood once aptly termed “The Housing Theory of Everything” - I think that there is no better way of tackling many of the US’s current social issues like crime, homelessness, climate change, inequality, cultural stagnation, and more at a single stroke than by returning our broken housing market to the prices of the 90s - it’s all downstream of how high the rent is. If you had to recommend only one book to someone unfamiliar with the issue that summed up the whole debate over the housing crisis, from causes to mechanics to potential solutions, this would probably be it, because even though housing is an incredibly complex and contentious subject, Schuetz ably lays out the historical background, explains the terms of the debate, explores the various analytical frames often encountered, discusses possible solutions, and evaluates them in an even-handed yet rigorous way.
Based on watching what’s happened in my hometown of Austin, I have become a solidly committed YIMBY/neoliberal who believes that the primary solution to what is clearly a deliberate decades-long engineering of a housing supply shortage in all cities at all income levels is to liberalize our broken single-family exclusionary zoning system by allowing us to simply build more housing. Unleash the cranes and bulldozers and don’t stop until everyone has a place they can afford to live, is my view, although I’m not opposed to including social housing or targeted rent subsidies/cost controls as part of the solution. However, I think even more market-skeptical or change-averse folks would find a lot of value in her analysis; even her chapter titles have a pleasant, common-sensical apothegmatic punch to them that should be unobjectionable across most of the normal ideological spectrum:
- Housing Sits at the Intersection of Several Complex Systems
- Build More Homes Where People Want to Live
- Stop Building Homes In the Wrong Places
- Give Poor People Money
- Homeownership Should Be Only One Component of Wealth
- High-Quality Community Infrastructure Is Expensive, But It Benefits Everyone
- Overcome the Limits of Localism
- Build Better Political Coalitions Around Better Policies
All excellent points, although of course actually solving the crisis is much easier said than done. Politics being what they are, even small steps forward encounter massive resistance from incumbents and rent-seekers, and even minor victories can take a long time; as I write this in July 2023 Austin just took the first step in the right direction since the collapse of our attempt to rewrite our zoning code a few years back by voting to allow more missing middle housing and stop requiring extra parking everywhere. It won’t fix everything, but it’s progress. A better world is possible! This book is not the last word on housing, but following her prescriptions to unravel the mess we’ve gotten ourselves in one step at a time would be an excellent starting point.
Based on watching what’s happened in my hometown of Austin, I have become a solidly committed YIMBY/neoliberal who believes that the primary solution to what is clearly a deliberate decades-long engineering of a housing supply shortage in all cities at all income levels is to liberalize our broken single-family exclusionary zoning system by allowing us to simply build more housing. Unleash the cranes and bulldozers and don’t stop until everyone has a place they can afford to live, is my view, although I’m not opposed to including social housing or targeted rent subsidies/cost controls as part of the solution. However, I think even more market-skeptical or change-averse folks would find a lot of value in her analysis; even her chapter titles have a pleasant, common-sensical apothegmatic punch to them that should be unobjectionable across most of the normal ideological spectrum:
- Housing Sits at the Intersection of Several Complex Systems
- Build More Homes Where People Want to Live
- Stop Building Homes In the Wrong Places
- Give Poor People Money
- Homeownership Should Be Only One Component of Wealth
- High-Quality Community Infrastructure Is Expensive, But It Benefits Everyone
- Overcome the Limits of Localism
- Build Better Political Coalitions Around Better Policies
All excellent points, although of course actually solving the crisis is much easier said than done. Politics being what they are, even small steps forward encounter massive resistance from incumbents and rent-seekers, and even minor victories can take a long time; as I write this in July 2023 Austin just took the first step in the right direction since the collapse of our attempt to rewrite our zoning code a few years back by voting to allow more missing middle housing and stop requiring extra parking everywhere. It won’t fix everything, but it’s progress. A better world is possible! This book is not the last word on housing, but following her prescriptions to unravel the mess we’ve gotten ourselves in one step at a time would be an excellent starting point.
June 3, 2022
I have mixed feelings about Fixer-Upper. I appreciate that Schuetz digs deeper into the housing affordability crisis beyond "legalizing apartments." At points, Schuetz even includes the rarely-considered perspective of cities dealing with population loss. However, Fixer-Upper's target audience is academics and policy-makers. The writing is direct and topical. I did not understand parts of the book and I was frequently confused by Schuetz's arguments. Fixer-Upper also does not read well on small eBook readers.
May 14, 2023
This book provides a solid foundation for many of the underlying economic and political systems of the U.S. housing market. I found the chapters on zoning and homeownership as a cornerstone of wealth creation particularly helpful in framing some of the issues around perverse incentives. However, I felt some of the author's policy prescriptions to be vague and weakly explored. There are several recommendations that involve federal agencies "increasing oversight" or "providing best practices" to local governments, with little further justification of how this would change the status quo at all. The author has a clear preference toward increasing centralization in regulation but doesn't reconcile this very well with the extreme diversity of U.S. housing markets, which she herself details throughout the book.
June 27, 2022
This is a great primer on the current housing crisis: how we got here, who is most affected, and some top level possible solutions to these varied issues. A lot of times the crisis gets boiled down to simple causes with simple solutions (tax the land, abolish single family zoning, tax the rich, UBI, etc.). But in reality there are a whole host of different issues that are contributing to the crisis and therefore there are a host of different things that need to be done to fix it. The author does a great job of laying out the biggest issues plainly in a digestible manner and providing some of the more promising proposed solutions in her mind.
A good read for anyone involved in local, state, or federal government and for those interested in housing issues in the US.
A good read for anyone involved in local, state, or federal government and for those interested in housing issues in the US.
December 13, 2023
Schuetz put together an awesome book. I loved the style and all the data she put into it. It painted a vivid and complete picture of the housing problems in America.
It would have been a five star book if Schuetz had offered more creative or complete solutions. A lot of her ideas were, we need more legislation, full stop. It wasn't even that I disagree with that on principle, it was it wasn't fully fleshed out. Which felt glaring in a book so full of detail.
Regardless, a great read and very educational!
It would have been a five star book if Schuetz had offered more creative or complete solutions. A lot of her ideas were, we need more legislation, full stop. It wasn't even that I disagree with that on principle, it was it wasn't fully fleshed out. Which felt glaring in a book so full of detail.
Regardless, a great read and very educational!
January 23, 2024
Really excellent policy book about how to address the housing crisis in America. The chapters are well laid out to describe problems and provide practical solutions- albeit hard ones that we have to face if we want to actually solve the problem of housing. With homes as a primary instrument for financial investment and generational wealth for the middle class, we’ve managed to put ourselves in a situation where alleviating the lack of housing means reducing wealth tied ip in single family homes.
Great book, albeit a bit dry.
Great book, albeit a bit dry.
September 17, 2022
Disappointed by this. As a survey of housing policy debates, it's way too superficial -- I learned very little I hadn't already absorbed from paying a medium amount of attention to these conversations. As a policy book, it fails to provide any particularly useful perspective and doesn't seriously engage with potential remedies. "Hey, let's try Andrew Yang's UBI thing" is not a particularly rigorous contribution to the debates on this subject.
December 31, 2022
I thought this was a nicely-organized overview of the problems with the US housing system and some approaches to fix them. It is difficult to strike a balance between accessibility and precise discussion of the deeply bureaucratic context for this issue, and this book does a decent job. Still, it seemed like it would be a useful introduction to someone new to the topic, but to me, as someone who has worked in housing and long taken interest in it, it wasn't as thorough as I would have liked.
May 19, 2023
I can't agree with all of the author's conclusions, but the book is quality writing, flows logically and is grounded in sensible economic and policy research. The chapters are manageable and balanced between narrative and data, which makes it somewhat easy to digest. If I had to nitpick, I think the author's solution sections are less practical than she makes them seem, but given the challenges facing the housing sector, I respect the ambition. A worthwhile read in my opinion.
September 1, 2025
This book is a solid synopsis of the major problems currently facing housing policy in the United States and proposes common-sense solutions to get there. Among many important insights in this book is how to communicate about housing policy change. For example, don’t use obscure (and potentially threatening) terminology like “banning single-family zoning.” Instead, say “legalizing apartments” or “allowing duplexes.”
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