How Our 'Stuck' Housing Market Mutes Healthy Mobility

There’s almost nothing worse than feeling “stuck.”

Whether it’s not reaching your health goals, failing to achieve that promotion you were working toward at the office, or being in a relationship that doesn’t feel headed in any specific direction at all, as humans, we are geared to move. 

Our bipedal nature was an evolutionary game changer for our species. Our eyes sit on the front of our head so we can see where we are going, our nuchal ligament holds our skull steadily looking ahead while we run, and our legs have evolved for continuous forward locomotion. While we may not be the fastest species (it’s not even close), we have incredible running abilities, even to the point of beating horses (with riders) in a 50-mile race (thanks to our amazing butts!). 

Our Paleolithic ancestors were nomadic, moving from place to place to access seasonal resources. In the coastal areas around my hometown of Houston, the Karankawa people gathered into large camps in the fall and winter near the coast, where it was warmer and fish and bivalves were plentiful. In the summer, as fish moved deeper into the gulf due to extreme heat, the Karankawa moved inland, splitting into smaller groups to hunt bison and deer. 

Our need to move physically has been well documented. Deconditioning, the decline in the physical function of the body due to physical inactivity, is a long-studied problem in hospitals and with the elderly, and former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign brought awareness to the fact that without moderate to vigorous physical activity, our children are headed toward the three most common and avoidable killers of Westerners: cancer, heart disease and stroke. What has been neglected is our need to move socially and economically. 

The Evolution of Mobility

In his recent book, “Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity,” Atlantic editor Yoni Appelbaum explores how social and economic mobility has evolved in our young nation. He argues that we don’t have an affordability problem as much as a mobility problem.

For example, you can buy a 4,425-square-foot “Victorian Mansion” on half an acre of land in downtown Flint, Michigan, for $68,800. This is housing that would be considered affordable for a household with an annual income of $35,000. And here we’re talking about owning a mansion. There is housing for nearly every budget available in America, it just might not be where you hope to live. 

The tricky thing is, we’re almost all guilty of supporting this gridlock. Even urbanist grand dame Jane Jacobs contributed to housing immobility by popularizing the idea that citizens should be able to control what happens on other properties within their neighborhood. Her famous fight with Robert Moses kickstarted a tradition of private property protectionism that some (including Appelbaum) trace as a predecessor to today’s NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) movement. 

Cities are great economic generators for our society. The concentration of humans creates value and leads to the sharing of ideas (innovation). In previous centuries, immigrants, orphans, and the poor found opportunities to improve their economic lives in these cities. 

While reformers such as Lawrence Veiller and Jacob Riis cast tenements as disgusting cesspools and blamed greedy landlords for their conditions, those very tenements served a critical purpose: creating a landing spot for new immigrants.

Tenements, often selected for the concentration of their countrymen, were an important first step for housing in a new land. Immigrants were willing to make tradeoffs in living space and share with roommates as they established careers and small businesses and saved money. Research shows that most immigrants only spent a few years in tenements and that their conditions, on average, were typically nothing like Riis’ famed photos. This housing typology was often nothing more than a “pit stop” on a pathway to the American Dream.

Not long before Jacobs’ time, in the late 1800s, New York City real estate was a well-oiled machine, with approximately one-third of residents moving on May 1 each year. Moving day was a marvel; the streets were in utter chaos as hundreds of thousands of residents brought their furniture and other belongings down to the street, hoping to hire a drayman with a cart to help them move “up” into a new apartment. Moving day meant all leases were up simultaneously, and typically, residents who could afford a better place moved up at these moments. 

These days, fewer than 10% of households move yearly, bringing our economic mobility to a grinding halt. Current interest rates certainly play a part in how low this number has become; however, zoning, environmental protection, and historic preservation have all played significant roles in leading us to this point. 

For much of our nation’s history, we have offered little in the way of a social safety net to our citizens, especially compared with our European counterparts. However, we had the novel ability to move from place to place to improve our lives. We now offer even less of a safety net than in our past, and have reduced mobility to the point that many in our country are stuck. It simply isn’t sustainable.

Lands of Opportunity

In the Middle East, cities formed shortly after the Neolithic Revolution as agriculture tied humans more closely to geography and provided them with more free time as agricultural methods improved. These early cities created the very first economies (as we know them). Critical to their explosive power was the ability for humans to move toward opportunity. Some moved to the wilderness to trap animals and sell their hides to city residents. In contrast, others found the nomadic lifestyle challenging and moved to the city to provide services to those already living there. 

With global cities continuing to increase their share of the human population, it’s all the more important that we keep these generators of prosperity well-maintained. Much like sedentary habits lead our bodies to decay, the arrest of household movement has made our cities sick, simply falling into disrepair. 

And the prescription is the same: movement. By removing single-family-only zoning, upzoning density limits, removing minimum parking requirements, and preserving limited historic sites and environmental protections that still honor the fact that humans need attainable housing, we can lubricate our powerful economic engines and return our cities to the lands of opportunity that they once were.