Of Housing and Homes

• Post by: Nicole M. King
• September 13, 2024

Brave New Home: Our Future in Smarter, Simpler, Happier Housing Diana Lind Bold Type Books, 2020; 272 pages, $16.99   Perhaps the most famous quote about the concept of home hails from Robert Frost’s “The Death of the Hired Man”: “Home,” says one character to another, “is the place where, when you have to go there,/ They have to take you in.” The line reflects a stark reality. “Home” is more than a spiritual place. It is also a physical place. It is the place where, “when you have to go there,” people remain “there,” and “there” is a building or shack or cottage or abode of some kind where you can find rest for your weary soul. We don’t really like to ponder it, but much of what we call “home” has been influenced by housing policy over the years. This is a reality that Diana Lind reflects upon in her new book, Brave New Home: Our Future in Smarter, Simpler, Happier Housing. Lind acknowledges that the first time she put a lot of thought into the concept of “home” was when she was stuck there, with her newborn son. “When I became a parent,” Lind remarks in the Introduction, “my world became centered around my house, and as a result, my values underwent an unexpected and dramatic transition.” Suddenly, that extra space she thought she wanted would mean extra income needed to heat and repair, and extra time to clean. She felt isolated, trapped even, and began to wonder “how humans had survived, and in such quantity, living this way—mostly alone, each family for itself.” But of course, she continues, they hadn’t survived “this way.” The single-family home is “a relatively new concept in the history of humankind.” Until somewhat recently, people tended to live more closely—boarding houses and multigenerational households, small family farms, or just more close-knit physical communities. As Lind acknowledges, the home has never been entirely free of market forces. In the post-Civ