Chuck Marohn has long been critical of housing research that treats affordability as a simple supply problem. This week, he brings Andrew Burleson, chair of the Strong Towns board, and Jeff Fong, a board member at YIMBY Action, a new paper on Australia’s housing crisis that starts somewhere else: with the way price increases move between detached houses and apartments, and from one city to another. The paper argues that detached homes help lead the market, while the discussion keeps returning to a harder question: how much of the crisis is about housing supply, and how much is about the financial incentives built into the market?

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• "The role of price spillovers in the Australian housing crisis: A two-market analysis" by Shu-Hen Chiang, Chyi Lin Lee, and Chi Man Eddie Hiu, Sciencedirect.com (June 2026)
• Chuck Marohn (LinkedIn)
• Andrew Burleson (LinkedIn), Free Range City (Substack)
• Jeff Fong (LinkedIn), Urban Proxima (Substack)
• Articles Mentioned and Downzone:
  
  • Fifa (Site)
  • 'We Can Never Go Back' (Substack)
  • Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company, by Patrick McGee (Goodreads)
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

 

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