ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Austin added new housing three times faster than the rest of the country for a decade — rents dropped below the national average, and young families left anyway, in numbers big enough that schools are now closing. Ryan Puzycki, who sits on Austin's zoning board, says outdated codes banned entire housing types — no fourplexes, no missing middle, no SROs. He traces the homelessness crisis straight back to America banning its cheapest housing type. Jerremy and Dave press him on BlackRock, Houston's fix, and what's next.
Timestamps:
- (00:00) The core stat – why "build more" isn't fixing housing
- (01:13) Meet Ryan – the man rewriting Austin's zoning code
- (06:25) Rents fell – but young families left Austin anyway
- (13:06) A preschool waitlist – San Francisco's scarcity problem up close
- (20:31) The banished bottom – cheap housing America chose to destroy
- (32:54) One metric – that actually proves if a city is failing
- (39:08) The BlackRock myth – why Wall Street isn't the real villain
- (44:50) Cities doing it right – Houston's quiet fix for homelessness
- (55:06) Rapid fire – Ryan on zoning, BlackRock, and the American dream
Connect:
- Ryan Puzycki – Website
English
United States
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