Strong Towns: The Housing Trap Tour

What took Place

ReForm Shreveport partnered with the LSUS Center for Business and Economic Research to host Strong Towns founder and president Charles Marohn for the launch-day stop of his new book, Escaping the Housing Trap. The event was held on the campus of LSU Shreveport and brought together residents, planners, elected officials, developers, and advocates for a timely and grounded conversation about housing affordability.

The evening opened with remarks from the LSUS Center for Business and Economic Research, highlighting the role of local data in shaping better decisions for Northwest Louisiana. ReForm Shreveport then shared updates on ongoing work across the city, from neighborhood-scale safety efforts to long-term thinking around housing and land use, before welcoming Marohn back to Shreveport to kick off the national book tour.

In his presentation, Marohn laid out the central tension at the heart of the book: housing as an investment versus housing as shelter. When shelter becomes a financial product that must always increase in value, communities are pushed into a trap where affordability, stability, and local resilience erode. Drawing on housing finance history, postwar development patterns, and today’s financialized housing market, he argued that the current crisis cannot be solved by enabling people to borrow more money to pay higher prices.

Instead, Marohn challenged the audience to focus on making housing affordable at scale by restoring missing “entry rungs” in the housing market. He emphasized incremental, neighborhood-driven solutions such as backyard cottages, small starter homes, duplexes, and modest infill. These forms of housing, once common, anchor local markets to what people can actually afford and allow neighborhoods to evolve gradually rather than stagnate or be disrupted by large, speculative projects.

A significant portion of the talk focused on the role of local government. Marohn argued that cities already have the tools to act through zoning reform, streamlined permitting, support for incremental developers, and localized financing mechanisms. He highlighted examples from across the country, including micro-grant programs, tax increment financing used for small-scale housing, and city-backed financing for accessory units, all aimed at empowering residents rather than displacing them.

The event concluded with an extended Q&A that explored local implications for Shreveport, including historic preservation, planning commission processes, neighborhood change, and the need to rethink how public resources are deployed. Throughout the discussion, Marohn repeatedly pointed to Shreveport as a place willing to “roll up its sleeves” and take on hard, practical work at the neighborhood level.

This event marked both the launch of Escaping the Housing Trap and a renewed call to action for Shreveport to lead by example in building a more resilient, affordable, and locally responsive housing system.