The Market Alone Can’t Fix the U.S. Housing Crisis (with Brian Callaci & Sandeep Vaheesan)

This week, Nick and Goldy explore why the market alone can’t solve the U.S. housing crisis with Sandeep Vaheesan and Brian Callaci from the Open Markets Institute. The guests discuss their recent article in the Harvard Business Review, which explains how profit-driven private markets fail to address housing affordability, particularly for lower-income individuals. Their discussion underscores the drawbacks of deregulation and the need for strong antitrust enforcement, second-generation rent controls, enhanced tenant protections, and a public option for housing to ensure stability and affordability. Vaheesan and Callaci also stress the significance of understanding the interconnected issues of supply, demand, and the socioeconomic factors driving the crisis, arguing that without proactive governmental intervention the housing market cannot effectively meet the needs of those seeking affordable housing. Sandeep Vaheesan is the legal director at the Open Markets Institute. He leads the institute’s legal advocacy and research on a range of anti-monopoly topics, including antitrust law’s role in structuring labor markets and promoting fair competition. Before working at the Open Markets Institute, he served as regulations counsel at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he helped develop rules on payday and title lending and debt collection practices. Brian Callaci is the chief economist at the Open Markets Institute. He researches and writes about market structure, antitrust law, and their relationship to worker and employer power. In addition to peer-reviewed academic research, he publishes articles in news outlets such as The Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, and The New Republic. Before working at the Open Markets Institute, he worked at the Strategic Organizing Center and Workers United/SEIU. Social Media: Sandeep Vaheesan on Twitter: @sandeepvaheesan Brian Callaci on Twitter: @brian_callaci Open Markets Institute on BlueSky: @openmarkets.bsky.social Open Markets Institute on Twitter: @openmarkets Further reading: The Market Alone Can’t Fix the U.S. Housing Crisis Zoning change: Upzonings, downzonings, and their impacts on residential construction, housing costs, and neighborhood demographics Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Threads: pitchforkeconomics Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social Twitter: @PitchforkEcon, @NickHanauer, @civicaction YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics Substack: The Pitch