Podcast
Stacked Against Us
How a national economic gamble broke housing, and why local resilience is the only way forward.
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Episode 1
When Your Landlord is an App
Description
Turning housing into a tech product promised speed and scale. What it delivered instead were broken homes, frustrated tenants, and a widening gap between the people who own property and the people who live in it.
Episode 2
Building the Housing Trap
Description
After the 2008 crash, federal policies fueled the financialization of housing, transforming it from shelter into an investment vehicle. The result: a new breed of landlords and investors moving into markets once dominated by local ownership.
Episode 3
A New Generation of Corporate Ownership
Description
A new wave of investors is targeting struggling cities, betting they can profit regardless of local conditions. This episode explores how financial incentives keep the model alive—and what that means for communities trying to resist.
Episode 4
Escaping the Housing Trap
Description
How can communities rebuild stability in a system designed for speculation? This episode highlights bottom-up efforts where neighbors, small developers, and local leaders are charting a different path.
Meet Your Host
Asia Mieleszko
Asia (pronounced "ah-sha") Mieleszko's career refuses easy categorization. It's taken her from researching Ukrainian folk traditions to covering infrastructure policy, from performing on the world's biggest stages to documenting underground music scenes. The through line? She's a storyteller, endlessly curious about how people and places come to be what they are.
At Strong Towns, Asia brings together curiosity, analytical rigor, and deep empathy to examine the forces shaping our built environment. In Stacked Against Us, she guides listeners through the labyrinth of housing, finance, and local governance, revealing both the systems stacked against communities and the openings for meaningful action.
Off the clock, Asia can be found behind a camera, playing the accordion or riding the rails across the country, always curious about the places and people along the way.