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Joshua Specht – Property Values

    The Rise and Fall of the American Homeowner

    Princeton Up Ideas Podcast | 21 September 2026 | 1h 1m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify

    Interview with Joshua Specht about his book Property Values: The Rise and Fall of the American Homeowner. traces how land ownership became central to American independence, shifting from widespread prosperity to property appreciation. Discusses colonial land speculation, Native American displacement, and the frontier’s closing. Explores Henry George’s critique of land monopoly and visions from Bryan and Addams. The New Deal’s mortgage reforms created an “ownership society”, yet propagated exclusion through redlining and tax limitations like Proposition 13. Homeowners’ associations privatised governance. The 2008 financial crisis exposed financialisation flaws, where individual blame obscured systemic issues. Advocates for regional housing policies and greater density.

    Book cover

    Alain Bertaud on What Planners Control – and What They Don’t

      The New Zealand Initiative | 20 March 2026 | 1h 06m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
      Interview with Alain Bertaud discussing why cities are labour markets first and infrastructure projects second; what happens when planners try to control things they cannot predict; why monitoring land prices may be the single most important thing a planning department can do; how to make sure infrastructure investment and delivery serves the spontaneous order rather than the other way around; and how to finance and deliver infrastructure under genuine uncertainty, in a system that lets cities grow flexibly. Draws from his book Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities.

      See also other episodes with Alain Bertaud.

      The Underrated Economics of Land with Mike Bird

        Works in Progress | 15 August 2025 | 1h 15m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
        Interview with Mike Bird about his book The Land Trap: A New History of the World’s Oldest Asset. Discusses land’s outsized influence on the modern world, driving credit cycles, revolutions, and economic development. Covers land readjustment in Japan and Germany, why Chinese housing is so expensive despite being oversupplied, how land reforms in Russia led to the Bolshevik revolution, and what killed Georgism.

        Did NIMBYs Kill the American Dream?

          Capitalisn’t | 20 February 2025 | 0h 45m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
          Interview with Yoni Appelbaum about his book Stuck: How the Privileged in the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity. Argues that the crisis in American homeownership isn’t actually about cost – it’s about mobility. While there are places where housing is affordable, housing is scarce where opportunities are greater with high-quality jobs, education, and health care. Discusses why mobility matters and the implications of reduced mobility for faith in capitalism.

          This is not just about America. Property regulation making property unaffordable is an Anglo-world problem.

          Bryan Caplan – The Economics of Housing Abundance

            The Joe Walker Podcast | 13 May 2024 | 1h 50m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
            Interview with Bryan Caplan about his book Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation. Backgrounds the evidence that regulation causes low property supply and high prices. Advocates radical deregulation to free up the supply of new property, with consequent improvements to equality, economic growth, homelessness, fertility rates, and more.

            See also The Curious Task interview with Caplan about Build, Baby, Build.

            Debunking Australia’s Housing Crisis Myth, with Cameron Murray

              Australiana | 24 April 2024 | 0h 48m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
              Interview with Cameron Murray about his book The Great Housing Hijack: The Hoaxes and Myths Keeping Prices High for Renter and Buyers in Australia. Cites the evidence that, counter to popular opinion, housing is not less affordable than in the past. Describes the forces that shape property markets and advocates a programme for genuinely affordable housing, taking account of vested interests.

              Is Land a Big Deal? ft. Lars Doucet

                The New Liberal Podcast | 24 April 2023 | 1h 04m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
                Interview with Lars Doucet about his book Land is a Big Deal. Discusses land value taxes and why he believes they’re a solution to many of our economic problems, why land matters in the modern economy, the political barriers to passing land value taxes, how land appraisal actually works, and more.

                See also other episodes with Lars Doucet, his review of Henry George’s book Progress and Poverty, and his essays at Astral Star Codex on Georgism.