In this powerful season finale of Built to Divide, Dimitrius Lynch dismantles the myths that have kept America’s housing crisis misunderstood for decades. Drawing from personal experience, economic history, and policy analysis, the episode reveals how housing transformed from shelter into one of the most powerful vehicles for wealth extraction in modern society.

From restrictive zoning and financial deregulation to labor shifts, political incentives, and the collapse of social infrastructure, Lynch exposes the deeper machinery driving unaffordability — and why tidy explanations often distract from systemic truths.

But this is not an episode about despair.

It is about agency.

Listeners are guided toward a practical path forward: legalizing more housing where opportunity exists, redesigning communities for connection rather than isolation, stabilizing vulnerable households, and reshaping financial incentives so that housing builds security instead of fragility.

At its core, the episode asks a defining question for the next generation:

Will we continue treating housing as a competitive asset — or reclaim it as the foundation of human stability?

Because the future of our cities isn’t predetermined.

It is designed.

And as Lynch reminds us — we’re not done building.

Episode Extras - Photos, videos, sources and links to additional content found during research.

Episode Credits:

Production in collaboration with Gābl Media

Written & Executive Produced by Dimitrius Lynch

Audio Engineering and Sound Design by Jeff Alvarez

Well, I think the great effort that he's made has been to bring us much more intimately in

contact with all the men who live here.

2

Before he became a symbol of Camelot, before the Cold War tightened its grip on the globe,

before Dallas, John F.

3

Kennedy once described the White House as something far more than a resonance.

4

It was, he believed, a living piece of American history.

5

a structure that belonged not to a president, but to the people.

6

After all, history is people and particularly in great moments of our history, presidents.

7

So when we have, as we do today, Grant's table, Lincoln's bed, Monroe's gold set, all

these make these men much more alive.

8

So I think it makes the White House a stronger panorama really of our great story.

9

do you mind living in a house that has as many visitors as this one has?

10

last year we had the largest in history which I think shows that the White House is

becoming more more important to American people.

11

Over one million three hundred thousand people pass through our home.

12

But I'd like to see that number double this year.

13

And what is particularly interesting is that at least two thirds of them were young boys

and girls at school.

14

I have always felt that American history is sometimes a dull subject.

15

There's so much emphasis on dates.

16

But I think if they can come here and see alive this building and the, in a sense, touch

the people who've been here, then they'll go home more interested.

17

And I think that they'll become better Americans.

18

And some of them may want to someday live here themselves, which I think would be very

good.

19

The House sits at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, perhaps the most recognizable home on earth.

20

A location chosen by George Washington, but first occupied by John Adams in 1800.

21

It was never meant to resemble a palace.

22

Early leaders were careful about that.

23

Even its name evolved slowly from President's Palace to Executive Mansion.

24

And finally,

25

under Theodore Roosevelt, simply the White House.

26

Not royal, not permanent, borrowed.

27

Built beginning in 1792 and designed by Irish born architect James Hoban, the structure

rose from sandstone and from human contradiction.

28

Skilled craftsmen assembled its Georgian lines, but enslaved laborers carried much of its

physical burden.

29

From its earliest foundation,

30

the house reflected the tension at the center of the American experiment.

31

Liberty proclaimed, inequality embedded.

32

Over two centuries, the building has evolved alongside the nation itself.

33

The British burned it during the War of 1812.

34

After its reconstruction, presidents expanded it, reshaped it, modernized it.

35

Offices grew into wings.

36

Terraces became corridors of power.

37

During Harry S.

38

Truman's presidency,

39

engineers discovered the interior was close to collapse, so the entire structure was

gutted and reconstructed from within, while its exterior walls stood like a theatrical

40

facade, stability projected, fragility hidden, history retained.

41

Jackie Kennedy later restored its cultural dignity, turning the mansion into a national

showcase of art and history.

42

After the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy ordered construction of the Situation Room.

43

a hardened nerve center for crisis.

44

And beneath the East Wing, during the anxious years of World War II, a bomb shelter was

carved into the earth for Franklin D.

45

Roosevelt.

46

Thick concrete, steel ceilings, and emergency communications.

47

A reminder that the presidency is never fully insulated from danger.

48

The White House has always changed.

49

War changed it.

50

Growth changed it.

51

Technology changed it.

52

Yes, history isn't a guide to the present.

53

In the archives building down Pennsylvania Avenue, there's a stone plaque which says what

is past is prologue.

54

While it doesn't give us a key to the future, I think it does give us a sense of

confidence in the future.

55

This country has passed through very difficult days, but it has passed through them.

56

And it is a...

57

rather interesting to realize that we're rather no republic probably the oldest republic

in the world and when we were founded there was a king in france a czar in russia and

58

imprint the king all that's been wiped away and yet this country continues so that makes

us feel that will continue in the future and that we represent a long effort building on

59

the lives of the men and the efforts of the men who were here and of the american people

in the past

60

So I consider history to be a source of our history, to be a source of strength to us here

in the White House and to all the American people.

61

And anything which dramatizes the great story of the United States, as I think the White

House does, is worthy of the closest attention and respect by Americans who live here and

62

who visit here and who are part of our citizenry.

63

And that's why I'm glad that Jackie is making the effort she's making.

64

And I know...

65

Other first ladies have done it and I know that those who come after us will continue to

try to make this the center really of a sense of American historical life.

66

In October 2025, with little public warning, demolition crews began tearing down the East

Wing.

67

Heavy machinery clawed through one of the most symbolic public sections of the building.

68

Change isn't abnormal, but historians were caught off guard.

69

Architects were stunned.

70

Even preservationists struggled to understand how such a dramatic alteration, without

need, could unfold without meaningful public discussion.

71

As rubble piled up, Donald Trump offered a simple explanation.

72

The project would cost hundreds of millions funded by quote, me and some friends.

73

The East Wing housed offices for the first lady, social staff, correspondence teams, and

served as a primary public entrance.

74

Visitors pass through it on their way into what Americans often call quote, the people's

house.

75

Its removal felt less like renovation.

76

and more like subtraction.

77

Officially, the project focuses on building a lavish 90,000 square foot ballroom, a

structure large enough to rival and potentially overshadow the existing White House

78

residence.

79

The symbolism is striking and unmistakable.

80

The people's entrance removed for a gilded ballroom.

81

Democracy out, aristocracy in.

82

and the ballroom's scale introduces a visual imbalance that would drive most designers

insane.

83

Much like Robert Moses' strategy of building first and forcing adaptation later, the

project's aggressive scope raises a question.

84

Is this simply an addition or the opening move toward a far larger redesign of the entire

complex?

85

Let's discuss what's what lay below.

86

Upgrades to the underground emergency bunker.

87

now known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, overseen in part by military

and secret service planners.

88

A preservation group filed suit.

89

The administration responded that halting construction could endanger national security.

90

But this scope doesn't sound like someone preparing to leave.

91

Technically, the White House exists in a legal gray zone.

92

Federal preservation laws that govern most historic buildings do not apply here.

93

Local permitting agencies have no jurisdiction.

94

It is considered a living building free to evolve with the presidency.

95

But legality and legitimacy are not the same thing because this was never just about

architecture.

96

It was about posture.

97

In a letter written the night after moving in, John Adams wrote to his wife, I pray heaven

bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it.

98

May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.

99

For most of American history, the idea that a president might treat the White House as

personal property, reshape it unilaterally, imprint it with private wealth, would have

100

been unthinkable.

101

Yet the demolition unfolded with the confidence of someone accustomed to building first

and explaining later.

102

Trump, after all, built his career in real estate, a world where leverage is currency and

scale signals dominance.

103

Courts found him liable for falsifying business records tied to payments and property

valuations, inflating and deflating them to secure financial advantage.

104

His explanation was characteristically blunt.

105

Everyone does it.

106

Some elites echoed the sentiment.

107

Others warned that holding such behavior accountable might drive wealth away.

108

Notice the pattern.

109

When wealth concentrates, it doesn't just accumulate.

110

It begins to bend the rules meant to govern everyone else.

111

The guardrails designed to preserve fairness start to look negotiable.

112

Equal opportunity becomes less a shared promise and more a conditional privilege.

113

And when those at the top redefine the boundaries of accountability, the standard doesn't

stay contained.

114

It cascades downward, reshaping expectations across institutions.

115

This is the moral climate forming above us.

116

a quiet recalibration of what is tolerated and what is not.

117

Because when power can redraw the lines without consequence, the Constitution stops

functioning as a fixed compass and starts behaving more like a suggestion.

118

Now let's be clear, the White House is not sacred.

119

It was constructed in part by enslaved people.

120

For decades, enslaved servants maintained its operations.

121

Reverence without memory is just myth-making.

122

But process matters.

123

Consensus matters.

124

Because the White House has also always symbolized a fragile agreement.

125

The president lives there temporarily, only as long as the public allows.

126

This house will always grow and should.

127

It just seemed to me such a shame when we came here to find hardly anything of the past in

128

This is Jackie Kennedy during a televised tour of the White House in 1962.

129

She explained her thought process and approach in turning the mansion into a national

showcase of art and history.

130

know when we went to Columbia, the presidential palace there has all the history of that

country in it.

131

Where Simon Bolivar was, every piece of furniture in it has some link with the past.

132

I thought the White House should be like that.

133

Well, now can you make

134

these changes according to your own personal tastes and desires?

135

Well, no, I uh have a committee which has museum experts and government people and private

citizens on it.

136

And then everything we do is subject to approval by the Fine Arts Committee.

137

What's your budget?

138

Where does come from?

139

Well, it really, it's small because everything we do is by private donation.

140

And every time we find an object we want, then we have to go and search for a donor.

141

It's very slow, and that way a lot of things that we would like to get slip away from us.

142

Now, suppose that you and your committee were to acquire some of the things that are in

this room.

143

What happens when the next president's wife comes into the White House?

144

Well, if they don't want it, in the past you see they could sell it, throw it out, do

anything with it they wanted.

145

But then a law was passed last spring, which we asked to have passed, whereby everything

that's given to or bought by the White House becomes part of its permanent collection.

146

If a future first family doesn't want it, it goes to the Smithsonian, where it will be

taken care of and displayed.

147

To dramatically alter the White House without broad public input doesn't just change a

building, it reframes ownership.

148

And Donald Trump

149

and his actions here are not an anomaly.

150

He is an amplification, the personification of an error.

151

Like the one who took too much meat by the fire, he reflects a growing posture among

powerful elites, a willingness to disregard the group in pursuit of private desire.

152

Trump is simply the loudest expression of a mindset gaining traction across modern power

structures.

153

One that sees institutions less as shared inheritances and more as assets waiting to be

repositioned by influence or by force.

154

And it doesn't stop with the visible theater of politics.

155

Behind the stage operates a new generation of networks most Americans rarely hear about.

156

One of them is the Rockbridge Network, founded in 2019 by JD Vance and media figure,

writer, and venture capitalist

157

Chris Buskirk.

158

Think of it less as a donor circle and more as political venture capital, investing not

only in candidates, but in media platforms, legal campaigns, grassroots mobilization, and

159

even blueprints for a future, quote, government in waiting.

160

Its membership reportedly includes wealthy investors from Silicon Valley and Wall Street,

among them Peter Thiel, Rebecca Mercer,

161

and the WinkleBoss twins.

162

By 2024, the network had grown to roughly 150 members and assembled a $75 million war

chest aimed at reshaping the country's ideological trajectory.

163

Much of this activity flows through nonprofits and donor-advised funds, structures that

can obscure the movement of money.

164

Supporters call it a strategic coordination.

165

Critics call it shadow governance.

166

Either way, it signals something deeper.

167

power increasingly organizing itself beyond public view.

168

But history reminds us that government, imperfect as it has always been, was never meant

to function like a corporation.

169

At its best, it is directed by the people and accountable to the collective good.

170

Capitalism can generate extraordinary prosperity, but when left entirely unchecked, it can

concentrate power so tightly that democracy struggles to breathe.

171

Scarcity is not a natural law.

172

It is often a policy choice, a decision tree, and decisions can be remade.

173

When markets fail to provide the basics, water, food, shelter, governance exists to close

the gap, not widen it.

174

The demolition of the East Wing might seem like a small story, just another renovation in

a house that has survived fires, wars, and centuries of reinvention, but symbols matter

175

because when the symbol of democracy begins to look like the

176

private estate of an aristocrat, when public space starts to feel privately negotiated,

and when wealth speaks louder than process.

177

You have to ask what else is being redesigned, whether the system still belongs to all of

us.

178

Here's the deeper twist.

179

We may have inherited rules built to protect yesterday's winners, but they are not

inevitable.

180

Balance in any society is never self-executing.

181

It must be insisted upon.

182

Apathy,

183

Self-censorship and quiet obedience creates space for those willing to take more than

their share.

184

Actors who step beyond norms precisely because no one stops them.

185

But leveling has always been the forgotten act of democracy.

186

Sometimes it looks like jokes.

187

Sometimes protest.

188

Sometimes it looks like organizing.

189

Sometimes it is as simple and as powerful as a ballot.

190

But it always begins with refusing to look away.

191

The same way past generations reshaped communities, sometimes disastrously, we still hold

the power to reshape them with intention.

192

To get.

193

I'm Demetrius Lynch, and this is Built to Divide.

194

To this certain economic truths have become accepted as self evident.

195

A second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be

established for all, regardless of station or race or creed.

196

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem.

197

Government is the problem.

198

Over the last couple of episodes, we examined how crisis, chaos, and division reshape

ownership and illuminated the motivating factors behind that division, faith, technology,

199

and finance.

200

Reading the tea leaves to ask, what happens when fear, chaos, and division becomes the

foundation of governance?

201

If you haven't listened to those episodes, I encourage you to go back and listen to all of

the episodes of this series in order.

202

And if you've enjoyed and learned something from this series, I really hope you'll not

just share it, but actively get one person to listen because I strongly feel this

203

information is critical for everyone to hear if we're going to move forward as a united

and better society.

204

This final chapter clears away the myths that keep the housing crisis misunderstood.

205

It examines the real forces driving unaffordability, restricted supply, financialization,

policy choices.

206

and political incentives and shows how housing evolved from shelter into a vehicle for

wealth extraction.

207

But this is not just diagnosis, it is direction.

208

The episode lays out a practical path forward, legalizing more homes where life happens,

streamlining approvals, placing guardrails on speculation, stabilizing vulnerable

209

households, and redesigning communities to foster connection instead of isolation.

210

And we'll get into all of that

211

after this break.

212

Episode 12, we're not done.

213

In July of 2001, I stepped into the field wearing a bright yellow safety vest that felt

two sizes too big and carrying a responsibility far larger than I understood at the time.

214

I was an intern at the public works department in the city of Compton.

215

I organized plans and sat in on meetings, but most mornings I rode shotgun in a city

truck.

216

rolling slowly through neighborhoods, scanning for cracked sidewalks, potholes, collapsing

fences, and illegal additions.

217

The quiet signals of a community either being cared for or neglected.

218

On paper, our job was simple.

219

Identify violations, document them, follow up.

220

But what I was really learning, though I didn't yet have the language for it, was this.

221

The built environment tells the truth about power.

222

because the built environment doesn't lie.

223

I grew up in and around communities where investment was scarce, where neglect showed

itself in broken infrastructure, underfunded schools, and public spaces that felt

224

forgotten.

225

But I've also walked through neighborhoods, both here and abroad, built to endure.

226

Places with strong schools, maintained streets, and assets designed to give the next

generation a head start instead of a setback.

227

You don't need a report to see the difference.

228

You can feel it.

229

Because the built environment is more than concrete and steel.

230

It's a record of priorities.

231

It shows who is protected, who's worth investing in, and who has been quietly left behind.

232

That summer was the beginning of a journey that carried me through studios and job sites,

through sleepless nights in architecture school, and through moments that tested whether I

233

belonged at all.

234

Like the night I accidentally drove an Xacto blade into my leg at 3 in the morning while

finishing a model.

235

Only to limp into a crit hours later and have my work torn apart anyway.

236

Architecture school doesn't just train you, it dismantles you first.

237

The ridicule can be brutal, the expectations relentless.

238

And as a black man entering a profession where less than 2 % of licensed architects looked

like me, there were moments where the isolation felt structural, almost as if it had been

239

designed that way.

240

But I stayed.

241

Over the years, I practiced across building types.

242

specialty retail, creative offices, restaurants, medical facilities, hospitality, and

above all, housing.

243

I stood beside tradespeople in the field, sat with executives in boardrooms, navigated the

space between vision and feasibility.

244

I saw the industry from nearly every angle, and through almost my entire career, one issue

has echoed louder than all the others, housing affordability.

245

At first it was a concern, then a trend, then a crisis.

246

Today it is the defining spatial challenge of our time.

247

I've heard every explanation imaginable for why housing has become so expensive.

248

We're out of land.

249

Foreign buyers are taking everything.

250

Interest rates are killing us.

251

Short-term rentals are hollowing neighborhoods.

252

Investors are hoarding homes.

253

Rent control scares builders away.

254

Each story arrives neatly packaged, emotionally satisfying, politically convenient.

255

But tidy explanations are often the most dangerous because they stop us from asking harder

questions and having difficult conversations.

256

So let's begin with the simple truth of housing.

257

Land typically accounts for about 20 to 25 % of the total cost of building a home.

258

That number shifts depending on location, access, and demand.

259

because land, unlike lumber or concrete, isn't manufactured.

260

Its value is shaped by economic conditions, interest rates, infrastructure, and the simple

reality of who wants to live there.

261

But here's the critical distinction.

262

We are not out of land.

263

We are out of permissions.

264

And no, this is not a call to build on protected landscapes.

265

It is a recognition that roughly 75 % of residential land

266

in American cities is zoned exclusively for single-family detached homes.

267

In some cities, that number climbs as high as 94%.

268

When the rules say only one, the market answers only the wealthy.

269

Housing scarcity is rarely natural.

270

More often, it is designed, written into policy, reinforced through zoning, and protected

in the name of neighborhood character.

271

Desirable areas become carefully guarded spaces.

272

If we want fewer bidding wars, we need more homes in the places people actually live their

lives, near jobs, transit, schools, and care networks, duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes,

273

accessory dwelling units, small apartments along transit corridors.

274

And we desperately need to reconsider parking requirements.

275

When approvals are predictable,

276

Less cumbersome and projects can move forward by right, risk becomes calculable.

277

Neighbors can better understand what's coming and housing that should exist actually gets

built.

278

Now, some point to pre-construction costs.

279

Permits, development fees, design as major drivers of housing prices.

280

Building permits generally range from 0.5 to 2 % of construction costs.

281

Design fees often fall between 10 and 20%.

282

But design is not excess.

283

Good design reduces uncertainty, prevents costly mistakes, and limits waste long before

construction begins.

284

Permit and development fees serve a purpose as well.

285

They fund inspections, enforce safety standards, and help municipalities expand

infrastructure, streets, utilities, emergency services needed to support growth.

286

Remember, in many property tax-capped jurisdictions,

287

These fees have become a fiscal patch, helping cities close budget gaps created by decades

of revenue limitations.

288

Revisiting property tax structure may be a worthy effort to ease development costs.

289

But in other words, these costs are rarely arbitrary.

290

They are the price of building safely, responsibly, and within a functioning civic system.

291

Now many point to construction costs.

292

I've heard

293

We'll say more seasoned professionals blame rising housing costs on building codes,

especially energy codes.

294

Each new cycle adds requirements that can increase construction costs anywhere from a few

hundred dollars to tens of thousands per building.

295

But those mandates aren't arbitrary.

296

They improve life safety, health and overall comfort while lowering long term expenses.

297

Since the 1990s, energy efficient buildings

298

have reduced operating costs significantly, saving roughly 60 cents per square foot on

maintenance, 50 cents on janitorial services, and 53 cents on utilities each year.

299

In other words, while upfront costs may rise, the long-term financial and human benefits

often outweigh the initial investment.

300

Yes, materials are expensive, labor costs have risen,

301

inflation has reshaped the value of the dollar, but zoom out and the picture shifts.

302

Since the 1940s, the dollar has lost roughly 96 % of its purchasing power.

303

Wages, in many cases, haven't kept up the same pace.

304

Nearly everything costs more, not just housing.

305

Yet, builder profits have remained relatively stable over time, dipping mainly during

economic downturns.

306

In fact,

307

Recent data shows margins improving.

308

By 2023, single-family builders reported their highest net profit margin in over 30 years

309

Gross margins also climbed from 18.2 % in 2020 to 20.7 % in 2023, while net margins rose

from 7 % to 8.7%.

310

These numbers suggest that despite rising construction costs, profitability has not eroded

and in some cases has strengthened, challenging the idea that the builder margins are the

311

primary driver of housing affordability issues.

312

So while overall costs have increased, it has been relatively marginal.

313

Construction expenses alone are not the defining force here.

314

There's a much bigger engine at work.

315

Interest rates are often blamed next.

316

And they do matter.

317

When rates rise, monthly payments surge.

318

But the shortage predates the latest rate cycle.

319

After the Great Recession, fear of overbuilding hardened into policy and practice.

320

We stopped producing enough homes and never caught up.

321

Vacancies fell to historic lows.

322

Then rates collapsed.

323

When mortgage rates dropped below 3%, buyers suddenly gained enormous purchasing power.

324

demand surged, prices responded exactly as economics predicts.

325

They exploded.

326

Rates are the accelerant.

327

Scarcity is the fuel.

328

But if we argue only about rates, we're debating pain relief while ignoring the disease.

329

Now what about investors?

330

Here the conversation gets warmer, but still incomplete.

331

Foreign buyers can reshape a skyline, but nationally,

332

They account for a small share of transactions.

333

Short-term rentals tighten tourist heavy markets, but they are side currents, not the

tide.

334

Institutional investors matter locally, especially where supply is thin.

335

But scarcity is what gives speculation its leverage.

336

When you ration a good, every bidder looks like the villain.

337

Fix the rationing and the villain loses their script.

338

Even the claim that luxury housing doesn't help.

339

misunderstands the mechanics.

340

New units enter at the top of the market and over time, older units filter down as they

age.

341

It isn't magic, it's math.

342

But math alone cannot explain what happened to housing in America.

343

For that, we have to zoom out because the truth is housing is no longer just shelter.

344

It is an asset class.

345

And that transformation, the financialization of housing

346

is the gravitational force shaping everything we see.

347

The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades.

348

They will not go away in days, weeks or months, but they will go away.

349

They will go away because we as Americans have the capacity now as we've had in the past

to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom.

350

In this present crisis,

351

Government is not the solution to our problem.

352

Government is the problem.

353

Since the late 20th century, the United States untethered mortgage credit from its old

constraints.

354

Adjustable rate mortgages, mortgage-backed securities, subprime lending, financial

deregulation, the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

355

Each innovation expanded the flow of credit.

356

More borrowing created more demand.

357

More demand collided with restricted supply.

358

Prices rose.

359

This is the modern housing story.

360

Not a gold rush, but a credit rush.

361

Cheap money met scarce homes.

362

The outcome was inevitable.

363

Then came 2021, the perfect storm.

364

Record low interest rates, pandemic driven demand for space, material shortages, labor

constraints, decades of underbuilding.

365

Investors purchasing one in five homes in some markets.

366

Every pressure point converged.

367

The spike that followed became one of the largest in American history.

368

A cross-continence and history the pattern repeats.

369

An accelerant.

370

Jobs, migration, cheap credit.

371

A constraint.

372

Restrictive zoning.

373

Slow approvals.

374

Financialization.

375

Homes treated as yield.

376

Policy amplification.

377

Incentives here, barriers there.

378

That quartet writes the price.

379

And if you can name a pattern, you can change it.

380

But here is the even harder truth, the one the building industry rarely wants to confront.

381

We cannot design our way out of this crisis.

382

We cannot build fast enough to outrun a financial system that treats housing primarily as

a vehicle for wealth accumulation.

383

This is bigger than architecture, bigger than construction.

384

Housing is not just a design problem, it's a political one.

385

One of the things Scott said though is, uh

386

Again, existing housing, people that own their homes, we're going to keep them wealthy.

387

We're going to keep those prices up.

388

We're not going to destroy the value of their homes so that somebody that didn't work very

hard can buy a home.

389

We're going to make it easier to buy.

390

We're going to get interest rates down.

391

But I want to protect the people that for the first time in their lives feel good about

themselves.

392

They feel like they're wealthy people.

393

And I want them to understand it.

394

You know, there's so much talk about, we're going to drive housing prices down.

395

I don't want to drive housing prices down.

396

I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes.

397

And they can be sure that's what's going to happen.

398

You can see the influence of the ruling class over time.

399

The very industry task with building America historically votes for policies that

undermine its own long-term stability, trading structural health for perceived gains.

400

which are short-term at best.

401

As we've discussed, since the 1970s, most economic gains have gone to ownership.

402

Elections shape infrastructure spending, labor law, taxation, environmental regulation,

the entire operating environment for construction.

403

Meanwhile, union membership, once a source of immense collective leverage, has collapsed.

404

In 1973,

405

roughly 60 % of construction workers were non-union.

406

Today, nearly 90 % are.

407

That's not just a statistic.

408

That is a shift in power.

409

The design profession hasn't had a meaningful union historically.

410

Low wages, extreme hours, and a culture of silent endurance became normalized, a race to

the bottom disguised as passion.

411

United will oh

412

Recent protests outside Björk Engels Group's London office reveal what happens when a

largely non-unionized profession faces sudden instability.

413

After a major project was canceled, the firm considered cutting up to 72 roles, possibly

more, sparking demonstrations from workers and unions demanding fair severance and

414

transparency.

415

Many affected architects were foreign employees with visas tied to their jobs.

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amplifying fear and vulnerability.

417

Protests call up the moment of warning for the entire industry, highlighting

architecture's persistent hire and fire culture and the limited collective power of its

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workforce.

419

Evidence that without stronger labor organizations, even elite firms can leave

professionals exposed.

420

Divide and conquer has always been the oldest management strategy, and too often it still

works.

421

that power struggle could influence how we vote.

422

Now consider taxes.

423

Corporate cuts are often framed as catalysts for investment.

424

Yet historically, those savings flow towards shareholders, stock buybacks, and lobbying.

425

Not innovation, not workers.

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Deregulation promises efficiency but frequently delivers unsafe jobs, lower quality

construction, and environmental harm.

427

Meanwhile, sustainability

428

One of the fastest growing sectors in construction hinges on political outcomes that

determine whether green energy expands or stalls.

429

Every election redraws the construction landscape.

430

The industry is not separate from politics.

431

It is downstream from it.

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But even policy debates miss something deeper.

433

Housing is not just an economic system.

434

It is a social machine.

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Over the past century, American housing quietly perfected the art of separation.

436

We traded porches for bonus rooms, connectivity for cul-de-sacs, shared stoops for private

gates.

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Our homes grew larger and our lives grew smaller.

438

We stopped seeing one another and loneliness is not merely emotional.

439

Research shows social isolation increases susceptibility to radicalization.

440

When you rarely encounter your neighbor, it becomes easier to fear them, blame them,

dehumanize them.

441

When public space shrinks, private anxiety expands and the architecture of division

becomes the architecture of distrust.

442

Places that invite incidental contact, short blocks, front doors facing each other, pocket

parks, generate social capital, trust, familiarity, soft oversight.

443

Jane Jacobs called it eyes on the street.

444

So if we built division into the landscape, we can build connection back in.

445

In our day, certain economic truths have become accepted as self-evident.

446

A second Bill of Rights, under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be

established for all, regardless of station or race or creed.

447

Among these are the right to a useful and remunerative job, the right to earn enough to

provide adequate

448

food and clothing and recreation.

449

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him

and his family a decent living.

450

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom,

freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.

451

The right of every family to a decent home.

452

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

453

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accidents,

and unemployment.

454

The right to a good education.

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All of these rights spell security.

456

And after this war is won, we must be prepared to move forward in the implementation of

these rights to new goals of human happiness and wellbeing.

457

For unless there is security here at home, there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

458

Imagine a typical residential block.

459

A corner lot becomes a fourplex that looks like a large house.

460

Pitched roof, welcoming porch.

461

A bungalow adds an ADU for a retiree.

462

A vacant teardown becomes a duplex.

463

The old corner store reopens with apartments above.

464

Suddenly, a teacher, a nurse, a student, and a widower share the same streak.

465

School enrollment stabilizes.

466

The cafe anchors daily rituals.

467

Children play on stoops.

468

Growth didn't arrive as a costly tower.

469

It arrived as a natural rhythm.

470

Not utopia, but intention.

471

A century ago, Americans were wary of debt.

472

Then the late 20th century taught us to embrace it.

473

Credit cards, student loans, home equity extraction.

474

For many, debt was a ladder.

475

For many others, it was a trap.

476

Between 2000 and 2007,

477

Americans withdrew home equity for consumption on a scale comparable to a medium-sized

nation's GDP.

478

Then came the crash.

479

Borrowers slipped, lenders sued, neighborhoods hollowed.

480

Debt is not the villain.

481

Most families cannot buy without it.

482

But we must stop designing a system where opportunity for some becomes exposure for

others.

483

We need ladders with rails, not trampolines over a canyon.

484

Shared equity models.

485

credit systems that recognize rent history, counseling that protects first-time buyers,

safeguards against predatory products.

486

I recently had a conversation with Zachary Faust, a Delaware realtor and content creator

who proposed the idea of first-time homebuyer fund and investor ladder.

487

A.

488

On the legislative side, we need to create simultaneously a first-time homebuyer fund and

an investor ladder.

489

What that is, is a fund

490

that is created specifically and houses money only for funds for first time home buyers to

either buy down their rates to be more competitive or use toward closing costs and down

491

payment assistance.

492

Most people need one or the other.

493

A lot of people need help on the payment side.

494

And if we lower rates, again, we're lowering them for everybody.

495

So I think there needs to be something in place to where we can give some advantage to the

first time buyer.

496

We fund it.

497

So everyone's like, where's the money come from?

498

With a investor ladder.

499

Simply put, if you purchase a property with

500

plans to flip, invest Airbnb, whatever, you're going to pay a two to 3 % fee at the

closing table that will go up as you invest more.

501

will single hand, it will simultaneously create a world where less people will invest when

they have a lot more.

502

And yes, you could create a corporate, a corporate veil and LLC and blah, blah, blah,

blah.

503

I think this would all come with, you need to fix that problem a little bit, but

504

You're also going to create a world where a minimum 2 to 3 % comes out of every single

time.

505

You're going to quell a little bit of the demand there, a little bit less purchase because

they're going to have to incur that fee.

506

Also could come off the purchase price because now investors are very money focused.

507

They may be say, hey, I have to pay this fee.

508

I'm going to take it off the purchase price.

509

That could happen.

510

But you're ultimately going to create a take a home, make a home symbiotic relationship of

if one home comes up the market for profit, there's another opportunity for first time

511

home buyer to purchase.

512

Housing should build stability.

513

not fragility.

514

And while long-term reforms take shape, we need immediate protections, eviction diversion,

rental assistance, property tax relief, just for seniors.

515

Nets are not ladders, but nets save lives while ladders are being built.

516

We must also domesticate investment, not demonize it, but aim it toward building rather

than hoarding.

517

Cities can partner with private investment to deliver housing at scale.

518

with limited contracts to return housing to the public.

519

Development of a built-to-rent community with an off-ramp that converts to a rent-to-own

after 10 to 20 years.

520

Ultimately, the future of housing will be shaped by whether we remember a simple

principle.

521

Scarcity is not a natural law.

522

It is a decision tree.

523

The same hands that wrote today's rules can write better ones.

524

Legalize more homes where opportunity exists.

525

fun homes where need is greatest, and measure success not by rising prices, but by how

many neighbors can live well.

526

In our very first episode, we gathered around a campfire.

527

A hunter boasting, an elder teasing, a community using story to keep the circle fit.

528

Somewhere along the way, our rules flipped.

529

We began praising portfolios more than people.

530

We walled off land with coats.

531

We turned the home, a human necessity, into a competitive sport.

532

But the circle doesn't have to close.

533

We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not

eliminate all poverty.

534

The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold.

535

We must create full employment or we must create incomes.

536

People must be made consumers by one method or the other.

537

Once they are placed in this position, we need to be concerned that the potential of the

individual

538

is not wasted.

539

New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom

traditional jobs are not available.

540

In 1879, Henry George anticipated this state of affairs when he wrote, In Progress in

Poverty, The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind

541

The work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature and elevates

thought is not done to secure living.

542

It is not the work of slaves driven to that task, either by the task of that of a

taskmaster or by animal necessities.

543

It is the work of men who somehow find a form of work that brings a security for its own

sake.

544

In a state of society where want is abolished, work of this sort could be enormously

increased.

545

And we are likely to find that the problem of housing education, instead of preceding the

elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished.

546

The poor transformed into purchasers will do a great deal on their own to alter housing

decay.

547

Negroes who have a double disability

548

will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have the additional weapon of cash

to use in their struggle.

549

Beyond these advantages, a host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result

from widespread economic security.

550

The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in

his own hands.

551

when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain, and when he knows that he

has the means to seek self-improvement, personal conflicts between husband, wife, and

552

children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of dollars is

eliminated.

553

Thank you for walking this maze with me.

554

If this season gave you new insights, share them.

555

If it gave you an idea, use it.

556

And when someone tells you housing must be expensive, remember the evidence.

557

Find a new solution and contribute to the movement.

558

Because we're not done building.

559

Not homes, not communities, not the future.

560

Thanks for listening.

561

Built to Divide is presented by Lines, my architecture and creative studio.

562

This podcast is produced in collaboration with Gable Media.

563

If you enjoyed the show, please tell a friend and rate and review it on Apple podcasts and

Spotify.

564

It really helps others find it.

565

And if you're looking for similar content, Built to Divide is part of the Gable Media

network where you can find even more like this.

566

Visit gablemedia.com.

567

That's G-A-B-L media.com.

568

And before I go, if you want to see additional photos, video clips and content that went

into this episode, you can visit me at lines.studio slash podcasts.

569

Talk soon.