Nobody who sits in traffic on Sedona, Arizona's main stretch or stands
shoulder-to-shoulder in its many souvenir shops would call it a ghost
town.
Neither would anyone renting a room for $2,000 a month or buying a house
for a half-million dollars. And yet the people who built this small town
and made it a community are being pushed further and further out. Their
home is being sold out from under their feet.
In studying the impact of short-term rentals, Brendan O'Brien saw
something similar happening in places ranging from Bend, Oregon, to Bar
Harbor, Maine. But it isn't just short-term rentals, and it's not just
tourism towns. Neighborhoods in Austin and Atlanta have become rows of
investment properties. Longtime residents in Spokane and Boston have
been replaced by new, high-salaried remote workers. Across the country,
a level of unaffordable housing that once seemed unique to global cities
like New York and San Francisco has become the norm, with nearly a third
of all US households considered housing cost burdened.
This situation has been abetted by the direct actions of developers,
politicians, and existing homeowners who have sought to drive up the
cost of housing. But it's mostly happened due to a society-wide refusal
to see housing as anything more than real estate, another product
available to the highest bidder. This trend of putting local housing on
a global market has worsened in recent years but is nothing new. Housing
in the United States has always been marred by racial and income
inequality that mocks the country's highest ideals.
Deeply researched and deeply felt, Homesick argues that we can be so
much better. And we can start where we live.
