I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book.I found the subject fascinating something everyone should think about.

4.5 stars.

This was quite an engaging nonfiction book! Diana Lind’s Brave New Home was well-researched, organized very logically, and made a clear argument with substantial evidence of the new trends in housing in the United States and where those trends may be best suited. While I overall enjoyed it quite a bit, I did find the book to be a bit repetitive, which often makes sense in a nonfiction book (it helps for assigning a particular chapter for a class reading, for example) but reading it straight-through made that aspect somewhat frustrating. Additionally, since the focus of the book is primarily to reframe our collective thinking on the necessity and status symbol of owning a single-family home, I did find the book sometimes felt geared more towards solutions for people in the demographic of single, high-earning millennials (looking at you, co-living), which was also frustrating given that, in my mind at least, this is not the demographic with the most need for changes in housing structures. My favorite chapter by far was the chapter on multigenerational housing, which is a topic I find super fascinating (and one that I believe will only become more relevant in my life) and I am eager to see developments in that aspect of the housing sector (side note: it is a fascinating sociological question of why white people in the US are so averse to living with their parents, which is also relevant to the housing concerns of high-earning, single millennials…). Thinking on it now (and this may just be my personal biases and interests coming in), I almost wish the book had been structured around the thesis that the single-family home has taken away our inherent care structures (i.e. multigenerational families and extended relations) and what we really need is a re-establishment of strong community ties, alongside familial relationships.

My personal musings aside, this was thought-provoking, and I would highly recommend giving it a read if housing is an area of interest for you!

Thank you to Bold Type Books for providing me with a free early copy of this work through Netgalley. Brave New Home is out now.

Diana Lind's Brave New Home explores American housing: the history and how it got to where it is today, and ideas for the future.

Housing in America today is still predominantly the single family home. Whether that is the ideal housing situation is something to be debated. Lind explores how we got here from the historically populous urban living, what its current issues are (in many cases unaffordability and that family units are no longer the same as before with much less people who are also more mobile), and ideas for the future. These future ideas include accessory dwelling units, micro-housing, and co-living to name a few.

It's an easy and digestable read to people who are curious about housing and may not know much about it.

This well researched book chronicles the history of housing in America. This would be a great book to read as part of a college history course, and particularly courses focusing on urban history. The writing is excellent and interesting to read. The author covers a long time period, from colonial days up until the current pandemic in 2020.

The author does have a specific agenda to push. She is anti-single family housing and advocates for "co-housing" (unrelated people living together) and multigenerational housing. She is particularly fond of ADUs - granny pads in the back yard. She makes her case, but I really wish she had presented the facts and concepts and let readers make up their own minds. I resented her presumption that cities are preferable places to live - over suburban and rural areas - and that living in a single family home is somehow bad.

Overall, this book was well worth reading, but not what I expected. As someone who is about to buy a new home, I was looking for new ways of efficiently living in a single family home in the burbs and as a soon-to-be empty nester. I didn't expect to be told to live in my kids' back yards and take care of grandchildren (which I don't have). I was honestly more interested in learning about better use of space and function of my home.