The U.S. is in a massive housing bubble. Financial fraud is a key component of any bubble and this one is no exception.

People have long speculated on where the fraud is this time, but some of the sources are starting to become known. 1/ Last year, the Philadelphia Fed issued a report on owner occupancy fraud. This is where someone states that they plan to live in a home when they apply for a mortgage when, in reality, they are an investor who will never live there. 2/

Do you really get to decide the kind of place you want to live in? Let’s look at five ways Americans tell everyone how they have to live. Hint: it’s less about arrogance and more about ignorance. 🧵 #1: Housing Finance

Think a 30 year mortgage is a free market outcome? LOL

That you can easily finance some housing styles but not others isn’t American preference. It’s b/c the federal gov’t made it easy to finance one and not the other. 2/

We are so focused on trying to build affordable housing that we aren't doing the simple things that would make housing affordable.

Here's a story from my hometown (Brainerd, MN) that will likely sound familiar. 🧵 Like many places, we have our own regional housing study showing that we need thousands of news affordable units.

Thousands.

This was completed before the pandemic. Affordability has gotten much worse since then.

The City Engineers Association of Minnesota did not need to weigh in on a parking reform bill being debated at the legislature. Yet, they did.

Their arguments show why engineers should not be consulted on public policy or be allowed to make value judgements. 🧵

https://twitter.com/StrongTowns/status/1792525756502827055

Engineer’s Claim #1: Removing Off-Street Parking Mandates Will Make Streets Overcrowded.

What?

The idea is that, if there isn't a mandate to build off street parking, people will park on the street, and this will make the street "overcrowded."

So much to unpack there. 2/

Houston is broke, but so are some of the richest cities in Silicon Valley.

What do they have in common? Not politics. Not governance.

It's the development pattern. The way they build their places has made them insolvent. 1/ Santa Clara is a wealthy place full of wealthy people. The median home value in Santa Clara is $1.5 million (compared to approximately $430,000 nationally) and the median household income is $150,244 (compared to $74,580 nationally).

Yet, they are also broke. 2/

strongtowns.org/journal/2024/4…

Last week, Houston officials said they were broke. That doesn't mean what you think it means (it's actually worse) and it's not caused by what they want you to think it's caused by.

This is what a Ponzi scheme looks like. 1/

https://twitter.com/AustrianInHOU/status/1774862958859870615

First, Houston is not about to file for bankruptcy. They are out of cash. They can easily cover up this shortfall with budget shifts and transfers, which is what they will certainly do. (All local governments do this.)

Obviously, that won't fix the problem. 2/

As we enter another election year, here is the promise I make to you: @StrongTowns will always remain focused on our core issues. Housing, street safety, eliminating highway expansions, reducing parking, accessible local accounting. Period. 1/ @StrongTowns If we truly want to restore prosperity across North America, we can't be divided by election year political battles. Every town urgently needs to address the housing crisis, the traffic fatality epidemic, and the infrastructure time bomb driving municipalities to insolvency.

My daughters were assaulted last week by an angry motorcycle driver who grew impatient waiting for them to make a dangerous turning movement. He was aggressive in a public space designed to license his aggression. 1/

strongtowns.org/journal/2022/4… “Dad, someone hit our car.”

That's the scary call I received. They were waiting to turn onto the highway and the guy, impatient for them to go, came around their car and started pounding on it, yelling at them through the window. They were scared. 2/

I don't want to sour the optimism of everyone wishing for a return of the "roaring '20's" -- I am grateful to hug my parents again too. I am optimistic for better days.

Yet, WWI was a time of higher taxes and sacrifice, as well as pandemic - that is quite unlike today.

/1 Having societal winners and losers is very different from a shared sacrifice. The former is what we have -- a group with little to no real pain and many people suffering, w/o or w/o pandemic -- and the latter is what 1914-1919 was.

/2

The process we use for hiring at @StrongTowns is unique, but it shouldn't be.

When people apply to work at Strong Towns, we only ask for their email address. No resume. No cover letter. No letters of recommendation. Just an email. We don't even want to know their name. (1/?) When we have all the emails we're going to get, we send the applicants an article and a set of questions. In this case it was eight. Write two headlines for the article. Write a summary. Give us two recommended photos for the article. The kind of stuff we need them to do. (2/?)