Homeowners do a better job of maintaining their homes, are more likely to vote and participate in civic life, and work harder to improve their neighborhoods, admits Clive Crook in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly. But he still believes that homeownership is “bad for America.”
Homeownership: Good or bad for America?
What is his case against homeownership? He really has just two points. First, a study in Britain “found that homeownership makes workers less mobile, which brakes economic growth and worsens unemployment.” What Crook doesn’t say is that British housing has that problem because anti-sprawl planners made housing so unaffordable that no one who already owns a home can afford to move.
