Privacy, Commute, and the Making of the Housing Crisis
We talk a lot about zoning, construction costs, NIMBYism—but these are symptoms, not causes. The Geography of Desire is an attempt to trace the housing crisis back to its roots: the enduring tension between our desire for privacy and our unwillingness to tolerate long commutes.
That tension—between the space we crave and the time we’re willing to spend travelling—has shaped cities for centuries. From the walking cities of the 1800s to the car-enabled suburbs of the postwar era, our urban forms reflect a compromise between these two needs. But now, that compromise is breaking down.
This essay explores why the usual solutions—upzoning, modular construction, infrastructure investment—are necessary but not sufficient. It argues that unless we either redefine what privacy means (as Japan has) or loosen the tie between work and physical place (as digital work increasingly allows), we’ll continue running into the same walls.
You can read the full essay over on Substack: The Geography of Desire.
Image: Mathosian, Mark. Levittown Early 1950’s. June 3, 2008. Photo. https://www.flickr.com/photos/markgregory/7651774934/.