“No society can be fully understood apart from the residences of its members.”
I’ve that quote (from “Crabgrass Frontier,” the seminal historical past of America’s suburbs) taped to a wall behind my desk. It summarizes why I really like protecting housing for The New York Times and appear by no means to expire of issues to write down about. Housing is all the things. It’s the place we stay and lift our households. It is most individuals’s largest retailer of wealth. Whether you personal, you lease, otherwise you sleep exterior, the place you dangle your head defines a lot of your existence.
Over the previous few many years, and particularly because the pandemic, housing has gone from a logo of American power to an on a regular basis disaster. Aspiring householders have gotten endlessly renters. People stay in more and more crowded households, the provision of unlawful housing has surged and homeless camps have multiplied. People are fleeing costly states for cheaper ones — which has in flip created housing issues within the cities the place they find yourself.
There have additionally been new alternatives: The rise of at-home places of work has allowed many individuals to relocate to cheaper housing markets and prompted a variety of households to give up their 9 to 5s and redevelop property or turn out to be landlords. In California and elsewhere, the legalization of yard houses has impressed a variety of householders to turn out to be builders by creating small rental models on their properties.
For the previous a number of years, I’ve lined nearly each side of America’s housing disaster, from the general public officers making an attempt to deal with it in statehouses to the individuals residing its penalties. I write about tenants in addition to landlords, builders in addition to environmentalists, public housing in addition to non-public — even an try to construct a brand new metropolis from scratch.
My tales vary in subject and are available from across the nation, however the widespread thread is that they’re rooted within the accounts of individuals and the locations that make them. Which is why I wish to hear from you. I wish to know what sorts of housing pressures you might be coping with and the way they’ve affected your life, household, friendships and group. And I wish to know what tales or subjects you suppose want extra consideration. The articles I write are impressed by the tales individuals inform me.
I learn all submissions. I additionally at all times attain again out to ask extra questions and ensure I’ve bought my info proper earlier than I publish something. I received’t publish something with out your specific permission, and I received’t use your contact data for some other function or share it exterior the newsroom. If you wish to submit data anonymously, please go to our ideas web page.
