When Your City Feels Like Housing Musical Chairs

What happens when the American Dream stops meaning “doing better than your parents” and starts meaning “just not falling behind”? Norm Van Eeden Petersman sits down with Andrew Burleson and Ryan Puzycki to untangle why stability feels so fragile, even in “booming” cities. They trace how zoning turns housing into a rigged game of musical chairs, how some places face strangling exclusion while others slide into rolling blight, and how missing bottom rungs on the housing ladder and remote work push rising costs — and workers — farther out. They connect these pressures to a new American Dream: finding a stable home that won’t vanish with the next lease. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES " The American Dream Meant Upward Mobility. Now, it Means Stability. " by Rachel Barber and Veronica Bravo, USAToday.com (March 2026) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Andrew Burleson (LinkedIn) Ryan Puzycki (LinkedIn) Articles Mentioned and Downzone: Adaptive Code (Article) Remote Isn't Working (Article) The Hobbit , J. R. R. Tolkien (Audiobook) The Social House Will Not Reopen (Article) Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast (Site) Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom . This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

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When Your City Feels Like Housing Musical Chairs is an episode from Upzoned by Strong Towns.

This episode is 45:55 long.

This episode was published on Apr 29, 2026.

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