On the Housing Crisis: Land, Development, Democracy

A rigorously reported anthology on how local politics have fueled a generation-defining national emergency. An Atlantic Edition, featuring long-form journalism by Atlantic writers, drawn from contemporary articles or classic storytelling from the magazine's 167-year archive.

In this precise collection, Atlantic staff writer Jerusalem Demsas turns her expertise & keen eye to the housing shortage, one of our country's most dire yet widely misunderstood public frustrations. Demsas examines how local democracies have become coconspirators in the anti-development aspirations of the very few, at the hefty expense of the many. These essays identify the inefficiencies & irrationalities of contemporary land-use politics and the stages they play out on, offering readers a refreshing & accessible guide to a generational crisis.

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Jerusalem Demsas is a staff writer at The Atlantic where she is an established voice on the housing crisis & local democracy. Her writing spans issues from infrastructure, labor economics, & federalism to race, gender, mobility & the politics of exclusion. She was recognized for her work in 2023 by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) with the ASME Next Award for journalists under 30. Demsas is also a Visiting Fellow with the Center for Economy & Society at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Prior to writing at The Atlantic, Demsas was a policy journalist at  Vox  where she also cohosted the popular policy podcast The Weeds.