The Great Divide

<h2><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>Australia's most trusted financial journalist on Australia's housing crisis.</span></h2><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>'One of the best long reads on housing and possible solutions that you can come across' </span><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>-Rafael Epstein</strong></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>An updated and expanded edition of the bestselling Quarterly Essay.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>One of the great mysteries of Australian life is that a land of sweeping plains with one of the lowest population densities on the planet has a shortage of land for houses. As a result Sydney is the second most expensive place to buy a house on Earth after Hong Kong.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>The escalation in house prices is a pain that has altered Australian society; it has increased inequality and profoundly changed the relationship between generations - between those who have a house and those who don't. It has caused a rental crisis a dearth of public housing and a mortgage crunch.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>Things went seriously wrong at the start of the twenty-first century when there was a huge and permanent rise in the price of housing. In this crisp clarifying and forward-looking book Alan Kohler tells the story of how we got into this mess - and how we might get out of it.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>This new edition adds material on homelessness how much house prices in each city need to come down to be affordable and lessons from overseas.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>'A timely contribution from a master communicator' </span><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>-Cameron Murray <em>Crikey</em></strong></p>