Who Can Fix the Housing Crisis - NYT Pundits, German Shepherds, or Bilbo Baggins?

Jason, Rob, and Asher are taking out a huge, unaffordable mortgage on the housing crisis. What’s behind the shortage in housing? Why is it that no one, except canine Tik Tok influencers with billion-dollar bank accounts, can afford to own a home? While mainstream pundits press for an energy-blind buildout of desert sprawl and gleaming towers of glass and steel, we propose a surprising change of course inspired by little people with hairy feet. Originally recorded on 5/21/25. Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language. Sources/Links/Notes: The story of Gunther , the world's most moneyed canine. You can't make this stuff up: Gunther offers to buy Nicholas Cage's island . David Wessel, " Where do the estimates of a 'housing shortage' come from? ," Brookings Institute, October 21, 2024. Alex Fitzpatrick and Alice Feng, " Americans' average daily travel distance, mapped ," Axios , March 24, 2024. Jon Gertner, " America Is on Fire, Says One Climate Writer. Should You Flee? ," New York Times , March 22, 2024. U.S. News and World Report, " Fastest-Growing Places in the U.S. in 2025-2026. " Good Ideas for Addressing the Housing Crisis: Jason Bradford, " Growing the Shire, Not the 'Burb: Facing the Housing Crisis with Ecological Sanity ," Resilience , May 27, 2025. Global Ecovillage Network Nate Hagens, " Alexis Zeigler — Living Without Fossil Fuels: How Living Energy Farm Created a Comfortable Off-Grid Lifestyle ," The Great Simplification, April 9, 2025. Energy-Blind Non-Solutions for the Housing Crisis: Conor Dougherty, " Why America Should Sprawl ," New York Times , April 10, 2025. Binyamin Applebaum, " Build Homes on Federal Land ," New York Times , April 15, 2025. Ezra Klein, " Abundance and the Left ," The Ezra Klein Show , April 29, 2025. Samuel Moyn, " Can Democrats Learn to Dream Big Again? ," New York Times , March 18, 2025. Tyler Cowen, " Ezra Klein on...