Today’s column (gift link) is about housing. And ducks. I’ve now written about housing several times. I didn’t start from a position of expertise, but I’ve had the opportunity to learn from a lot of experts.
You could say the same of my knowledge about birds. Even 12 years ago, I actively resisted interest in birds. I sought to avoid the perceived mundanity of becoming a birder. Now, as my columns over the past few years reveal, I am a big sloppy bird nerd.
I suppose there’s something to said about our individual capacity for learning and change. Who you are today is not who you will be in 10 or 20 years. And that’s also the most vital fact about housing policy.
We’ve become tied to housing as an investment. In fact, it’s a piggy bank for middle-class people to store value in their dwelling space. Lately, buying up rental properties has become essential to a certain kind of neighborhood hustler, to the chagrin of those who must pay rent. But the most important fact about housing is the living part. In other words, we should hold reasonable hope that we may maintain stability and simple comforts while we trade our time for money.
This makes our problem with housing similar to the wood duck’s loss of habitat. And just like the recovery of the wood duck, we can recover. How? We rebuild a housing strategy that shelters people in small towns and big cities alike.
So, here’s how I turned the installation of a wood duck house on my property into simple argument in favor of expanding housing options in places that need people.
Read “What wood ducks can teach us about housing policy” in the Wednesday, April 8, 2026 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
