Should the American Dream be Synonymous with Home Ownership?
Posted by nithi.vivatrat on March 31, 2009
Columbia University’s Edmund Phelps was on American Public Media’s Marketplace last week contending that we rethink our national obsession with home ownership.
I listened to this after having recently read David Kamp’s fascinating piece in April’s Vanity Fair titled “Rethinking the American Dream.”
Both pieces are very thought-provoking. I do think there is something disconcerting about the American Dream somehow becoming synonymous with home ownership (it wasn’t always like that), and I do have concerns about the many aspects of our government policy that encourage this mindset. To me, it is undeniable that the mortgage interest deduction played at least some role in the housing bubble run-up.
While I do believe that home ownership and renting should be theoretically economically equivalent over the long run, there are some intangible attributes to home ownership (pride of ownership and emotional investment to neighborhood development and care among them) that cannot be ignored. Anyway, the spirited back-and-forth in the comment section of the Marketplace piece is as interesting as the Phelps interview itself. Hope you find this interesting as well.