Who Killed the Starter Home?

Marina Rubina
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  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Have you seen any starter homes for sale lately? Neither have we. In this podcast, we speak with experts and try to figure out why this humble first home is going extinct. We’ll be exploring if it is the politicians, wielding zoning laws like a murder weapon who killed the starter home? Or maybe the scaredy-cat planners and designers? Or the developers, armed with cookie-cutter plans and corporate indifference? Is it our convoluted tax policy that subsidies homeownership, but puts every tax penalty in the way of creation of the starter homes. Spoiler alert: it’s probably a little of everything. We’ll be peeling back the layers of bureaucracy, bad faith, and bad planning, with stops along the way for affordable housing scandals, ADU success stories, and a passionate plea for building code updates. Join us for a conversation that’s part policy deep-dive, part therapy session for frustrated builders, and entirely a love letter to cities that deserve better.

  1. New Energy for a New Generation: A Conversation with Jay Vaingankar, (NJ congressional district 12 candidate)

    6H AGO

    New Energy for a New Generation: A Conversation with Jay Vaingankar, (NJ congressional district 12 candidate)

    On this podcast we usually focus on housing policy, but today we are starting a special series of conversations with the candidates running for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. While our listeners outside of New Jersey may not care about this specific election, they may be fascinated to hear that we have 17 courageous people putting themselves in the spotlight and offering their vision and ideas for the future of their country. Housing issues are inevitably coming up, so we aren’t straying too far off-topic. Our first guest is Jay Vaingankar, the youngest of the candidates, bringing his Gen-Z perspective to the race. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Jay worked in the Biden administration on COVID-19 operations and at the Department of Energy. He shares how his perspective on policies has been influenced by growing up in a family of immigrants and a very diverse community here in Mercer County. If elected to Congress, Jay plans to 'major' in energy and climate—leveraging his experience implementing the Inflation Reduction Act—while 'minoring' in immigration reform. In our conversation, he shares his thoughts on why the Democratic party and the Biden Administration had a difficult time getting credit for the work they were doing and why he believes a new generation of leaders is needed to address modern challenges like AI, housing scarcity, and climate change. Please note that the views expressed by the candidate are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this podcast. Given the nature of these long-form interviews, we cannot independently fact-check every claim made during the conversation. We encourage listeners to research the candidates and issues further as we approach the primary.

    58 min
  2. Welcoming A Plane Full of New Neighbors Every Day. Conversation with Teresa Goldstein

    FEB 13

    Welcoming A Plane Full of New Neighbors Every Day. Conversation with Teresa Goldstein

    What do you do when the equivalent of a plane full of people moves to your city every single day — not tourists, but people coming to stay? Calgary experienced exactly that. A successful marketing campaign attracted new residents, and suddenly growth wasn’t theoretical — it was reality. In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Teresa Goldstein, Chief Planner and Director of Community Planning for the City of Calgary. We discuss why flexibility is the foundation of vibrancy, how making the language of zoning understandable helps cities grow gracefully, and what it looks like when government sees its role as a service provider rather than a gatekeeper.

    53 min
  3. How the American Dream Got Stuck. Conversation with Yoni Appelbaum

    FEB 6

    How the American Dream Got Stuck. Conversation with Yoni Appelbaum

    Do you feel like something in our country is seriously broken right now? Like we’re losing a piece of what once made America optimistic and upwardly mobile — the belief that our future could be better than our past? Yoni Appelbaum has done the research, and the story he tells is unsettling but also hopeful. For most of American history, uniquely in the world, America’s secret sauce was the freedom to move toward opportunity. That mobility gave people the agency to shape their future and even their identity. But over the past 50 years, we’ve become stuck. Stuck in part because of the purposeful and openly discriminatory use of land. Some of the earliest zoning rules, beginning in 1885 in Modesto, California, were designed to push out Chinese laundry owners by banning the very businesses they operated to serve their customers. Over time, we became very good at building these legal walls. They came to seem normal, appropriate, even “scientific.” The result has been growing separation, rising resentment among those left out, and real strain on the foundations of our democracy. But here’s the hopeful part: these land-use walls are words on paper, written by people. That means they can be rewritten. We can choose to get unstuck.

    1h 10m
  4. Homelessness Is a Housing Problem. Conversation with Gregg Colburn

    JAN 30

    Homelessness Is a Housing Problem. Conversation with Gregg Colburn

    In this episode, I talk with Gregg Colburn about why homelessness is not just a personal tragedy, but a policy failure. Professor Colburn has done the research. If we want fewer people on the street, we must create more homes. It’s not rocket science. We’ve tried it, and it works.

    49 min
  5. If Lawmakers Won't Act, Voters Will. Conversation with Andrew Mikula.

    JAN 23

    If Lawmakers Won't Act, Voters Will. Conversation with Andrew Mikula.

    In this episode, I talk with Andrew Mikula, who is leading an effort to bring a ballot measure to voters in Massachusetts that would make it possible to create starter homes. Their proposal doesn’t seem too radical: if you have a plot of land the size of an NBA basketball court, or can create a lot of that size in an area with existing infrastructure, you should be allowed to build a home on it. Andrew walks through how his team is approaching this process and what it says about the state of our government that it may be easier to win majority support from voters than to pass state legislation to do the same.

    48 min
  6. Stop Pretending All Solutions are Equal. Conversation with Luca Gattoni-Celli

    JAN 16

    Stop Pretending All Solutions are Equal. Conversation with Luca Gattoni-Celli

    In this episode, I speak with Luca Gattoni-Celli about why we can’t subsidize our way out of the housing crisis and how vacancy chains really work. We also unpack two issues that feel permanent but are actually new: today’s homelessness crisis and the growing immobility of people who are being pushed away from opportunity because they can’t afford to live anywhere near it.

    1h 10m
  7. Avoiding Conflict Does Not Build Consensus, Conversation with Casey Anderson

    JAN 9

    Avoiding Conflict Does Not Build Consensus, Conversation with Casey Anderson

    In this episode I spoke with Casey Anderson who for 8 years chaired the Montgomery County Maryland Planning Board. I came across his recent article "What are planning hearings for?" where he talks about problems he saw that make our public engagement process so dysfunctional. Casey offers suggestions, but we by no means came up with complete solutions. We hope that this is a start of the conversation.

    1h 4m
  8. Sustainability Starts With Flexibility. Conversation with Taizo Yamamoto

    JAN 2

    Sustainability Starts With Flexibility. Conversation with Taizo Yamamoto

    In this episode, I spoke with Taizo Yamamoto, principal of Yamamoto Architects. They creating beautiful, sustainable housing in Vancouver. He shares how the flexibility of Vancouver’s zoning allows for innovative and green projects. I loved learning about mass timber structures and other ideas that could help create more sustainable buildings and vibrant neighborhoods.

    56 min
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Ratings & Reviews

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out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Have you seen any starter homes for sale lately? Neither have we. In this podcast, we speak with experts and try to figure out why this humble first home is going extinct. We’ll be exploring if it is the politicians, wielding zoning laws like a murder weapon who killed the starter home? Or maybe the scaredy-cat planners and designers? Or the developers, armed with cookie-cutter plans and corporate indifference? Is it our convoluted tax policy that subsidies homeownership, but puts every tax penalty in the way of creation of the starter homes. Spoiler alert: it’s probably a little of everything. We’ll be peeling back the layers of bureaucracy, bad faith, and bad planning, with stops along the way for affordable housing scandals, ADU success stories, and a passionate plea for building code updates. Join us for a conversation that’s part policy deep-dive, part therapy session for frustrated builders, and entirely a love letter to cities that deserve better.

Information

  • Creator
    Marina Rubina
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    53
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Who Killed the Starter Home?