Book review: Escaping the Housing Trap

$185,000 bought this house five blocks from meCharles L. Marohn Jr. and Daniel Herriges, Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis. Hoboken NJ: Wiley, 2024. (8/25/2026) This fall I'm part of a local group that has decided to take on the housing crisis in our town. There's one in every town, of course, and the precise nature of the crisis varies all over the place, with Cedar Rapids somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. Our group will benefit greatly from people like the authors of this book who have thought seriously about problems in housing, can explain their origins and nature in everyday language, and are optimistic about our ability to improve the situation in our communities. At least it has motivated me to read this third in a series of Strong Towns books! (See links to previous reviews below.)The most recent measure of the Case-Shiller Index of U.S. home prices was 331.020 in May 2026, which means that, taking into account overall inflation…