The real problem behind the U.S. housing crisis is not a lack of affordable homes but of mobility, argues historian Yoni Applebaum in the insightful Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity. People can't afford to live where they want to live. Although in some places "housing is so cheap it can't be given away," such areas lack opportunities--namely, well-paid jobs and robust services.
Applebaum, a deputy executive editor at the Atlantic, traces the origins and fluctuations in mobility in the U.S. He specifically details how constant migration helped the country and its citizens, and how zoning laws and other restrictions eventually curbed mobility and therefore opportunity. Applebaum cogently points out the many horrific flaws in American housing policies, which were (and still are) based in racist motivations. For instance, the nation's first zoning law was passed in 1885 in Modesto, Calif., to limit where laundries--a trade dominated by Chinese immigrants who usually lived in their shops--could operate. In New York City, reformers and policy makers targeted tenements because they housed immigrants and "undesirable populations."
Applebaum includes relevant personal anecdotes, such as how his family was priced out of their Cambridge, Mass., neighborhood, and how his own great-grandfather lived in New York City tenements. However, Stuck is not a memoir. As a history, it covers the founding and structure of Plymouth Colony, then works its way forward to the 21st century. Appelbaum uses case studies of particular people, families, and places to create dynamic portraits within a dense historical and legal landscape. --Nina Semczuk, writer, editor, and illustrator