@yappelbaum
Deputy Executive Editor, The Atlantic. Author of "Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity." https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/700580/stuck-by-yoni-appelbaum/
If you don’t know the story of Hang Kie and Modesto’s legalization of racial segregation through the racially neutral mechanism of zoning, it’s one of the great untold American civil rights stories.
Mortgage rates fell from nearly 18% at the beginning of 1982 to about 11% by the start of 1986. At their peak, they kept a lot of people frozen in place; when they came down, they set off a wave of local moves, as people traded up to housing that better suited their needs.
The American Dream has always been widespread access to opportunity. Without plentiful housing in high opportunity cities, the American Dream dies.
8. So if you haven't yet read "Stuck," here's your chance to understand how we got into this mess, and how we can get out of it. And if you have? Pick up a paperback and give it to a friend. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/700580...
7. The solution isn't complicated. We need to let folks build all kinds of housing where people actually want to live. By restoring mobility, we can restore agency, dignity, opportunity, and hope.
6. There's a massive shift underway. People—particularly young people—now understand that the best way to build a better society is ... to build it. There's broad public support for rolling back the exclusionary laws and regulations that have for too long held back opportunity.
5. For the last 12 months, I've travelled around the country, hearing stories of people priced out of opportunity, or struggling to afford to stay where they are. The problem is real. But here's the thing: The more people I've heard from, the more optimistic I've become.
4. A year ago, I published "Stuck," a history of how mobility built American prosperity and democracy—and how its decline has endangered it. Today, it's out in paperback.
3. This society was once the most mobile on earth. But over the past half-century, we've slowly ground to a halt. In a word, we're STUCK. And it's broken our communities, our economy, and our politics.
2. The most powerful idea that the U.S. has given to the world is that you don't have to be defined by the circumstances of your birth. Americans created a nation in which people could choose their communities, instead of communities choosing their people.
1. Take a look at this chart. That black line? Technically, it's the decline in the percentage of Americans who move each year—from about one in five to less than one in thirteen.
But it's more than that.
You're looking at the decline of the American dream.
#Stuck by @YoniApplebaum important book that examines, among other things, #affordablehousing via how the privileged and the propertied broke the engine of American opportunity - out in paperback this month. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/03/book-excerpt-from-stuck-by-yoni-appelbaum/
“The Gilded Age saw an eruption of scandal and corruption that accompanied and even enabled the transformation of the American economy alongside explosive changes in technology,” Walter Russell Mead argues. “Trump’s Washington looks like the Gilded Age on steroids.”
NEW: “I mean, is this a Fort Sumter?” Tim Walz asked
@isaacstanleybecker.bsky.social today. “It’s a physical assault,” Walz told him. “It’s an armed force that’s assaulting, that’s killing my constituents, my citizens.”
www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
BREAKING: The Border Patrol's Greg Bovino has been ousted from his role of "Commander at Large"—and Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski could be next to lose their jobs, sources tell @nickmiroff.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
I gave you guys a whole year to solve America's mobility crisis—restoring the chance for Americans to pursue opportunity and choose their own communities—but you've left me with no choice but to publish "Stuck" in paperback.
Can money buy a president love? Trump seems determined to find out, perhaps as early as tonight:
www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...
Something I wrote. @theatlantic.com @yappelbaum.bsky.social
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
I love this essay.
Reminder: Mayor Alyia Gaskins will join journalist and author Yoni Appelbaum for a public forum on housing affordability and zoning reform tonight at the Lyceum.
"The Pentagon’s top watchdog has concluded that the information Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared in the chat could have put the mission, U.S. personnel, and national security at risk had it fallen into the wrong hands."
Detailed, exclusive reporting: www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...
There's something uniquely satisfying about kind words from a writer whose own books you've enjoyed. Thanks to
@vermontgmg.bsky.social
for including me on this list: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/my-favorit...
Related:
This is a great section from the book “Stuck” about how new homes kept getting new features at breakneck speed, and they all *made life easier*:
👀 @alyia4alx.com and @yappelbaum.bsky.social will discuss Zoning for Justice and Affordability, hosted by @homeofva.bsky.social at the Lyceum in Old Town
Mon. 12/8, 6:30 - 8:00pm
Event is free but space is limited:
homeofva.org/events/lets-...
BREAKING: Mark Wolf, appointed to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan, writes that he is resigning as a judge to have the freedom to speak out against the president's assault on the rule of law.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
law and order: sandwich crimes unit www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
You keep making this claim, and I'm baffled by it. Can I ask you to point to the passage from my book where I defend or rehabilitate Robert Moses? Here's the sole mention of Moses, and the passage in which I make my view of the conflict between them plain:
We published our 100th episode! Listen for some fun lore about the Housing Voice hosts, answers to listener questions, and the announcement that we'll be reading Stuck for our first book club, with author Yoni Appelbaum joining us for the last episode in that short series.
"Some of the critics seems to view the artificial costs of mobility as an argument against mobility, when removing those artificial costs is the whole point of the book." Further thoughts on @yappelbaum.bsky.social's "Stuck," and against localism as an ideology:
Text from the book. The resurgence of mobility revived other aspects of American life that had fallen off during the Great Depression. People sought out churches and clubs and lodges as they tried to construct community in their new surroundings. Between 1940 and 1945, rates of membership in American voluntary associations saw their largest recorded surge. Church membership ticked up, too. Just as the golden age of American voluntary associations in the late nineteenth century had been driven by the remarkable number of Americans moving from one place to another, its revival in the postwar decades was, too. Despite becoming sharply more likely to be living next to new neighbors, and to have moved to an unfamiliar place themselves, Americans expressed more trust in each other and more faith in institutions than they had during the immobile years of the Great Depression.
One of the most interesting things in @yappelbaum.bsky.social's Stuck, is the idea that people join groups most when they can live where they want.