Richard Florida was on NPR’s Morning Edition today to talk about why owning a home is not always better than renting. In his new book, The Great Reset, Richard quotes Edmund Phelps who said, “America needs to get over its house passion. Listen to the interview below to hear Richard and Steve Inskeep talk about new ways to live and work post-recession:
April 27th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
The only way to get over the housing obsession is to get over the private property model. Are the banks or the government supposed to become landlords? I’m scared of being tied to sinking mortgage in an area with low job prospects but at the same time I’ve been the victim of a bad landlord before. What are my alternatives? Long term leasing still leaves renters at the mercy of their landlords.
April 27th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Good interview. Got me thinking….
Out of curiosity, I wonder what the rental options are really like in many American cities. To make rental as attractive as ownership, it seems there have to be some other benefits besides greater mobility.
That is, if a family with 1 or 2 kids decides to relocate from their owned suburban home in a struggling metro area to a more prosperous city, and decides to rent (at least to start), what kinds of options do they have?
A. Renting an equivalent house in an equivalent auto-oriented suburb?
B. Renting a smaller place, maybe a nice, newer townhouse or apartment, and in a park- and amenity-rich area, close to good schools, rapid transit, employment nodes, etc.
I suspect that in most cases the only option is A because B doesn’t exist.
It seems for the density and “urban velocity” that Richard speaks of in the Great Reset, there needs to be more “options B” (for both renters and strata owners).