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Giorgio Angelini didn\u2019t exactly pick the most fortuitous time to start architecture school. He enrolled in Rice University\u2019s architecture program in 2008, just as the U.S. economy was plunging into recession and new construction screeching to a halt.\nBut this led to its own sort of opportunity\u2014a chance to engage with some serious questions about architecture\u2019s role in bringing about the housing crisis, and, perhaps, in bringing about a positive response to it. For a research project, Angelini visited aborted suburban subdivisions in California\u2019s Inland Empire\u2014the kind where one home stands adrift in a sea of dirt, weeds, and crumbling streets to nowhere. His \u201cWhat the heck is going on?\u201d moment upon viewing these sites sent him down a path of discovery that culminated in making a documentary film, Owned: A Tale of Two Americas.\nOwned is an exploration of how homeownership has been commoditized and marketed to Americans\u2014but not all Americans. Through powerful interviews and archival footage, Angelini chronicles the creation of two starkly divergent Americas. In one, homeownership became the American dream, the primary vehicle by which millions of families accumulated wealth and passed it on to the next generation\u2014but mounting debt and economic instability now threaten to unravel this dream. In the other America, racist laws and practices shut a generation of mostly African-Americans out of the opportunity to buy into booming postwar suburbs\u2014and many of their descendants still live in hyper-segregated, disinvested neighborhoods where generational wealth is only a pipe dream.\nA home may be deeply personal, and the most expensive purchase nearly all of us will ever make\u2014so you\u2019d think a lot of thought would go into its production, Angelini says. But a hallmark of the suburban era has been the transformation of housing into a commodity. Something about watching orange groves on the fringes of Southern California uprooted for subdivisions makes it as plain as can be: housing is the new cash crop in these places.\nOwned heavily features Strong Towns and our founder, Charles Marohn. We\u2019ve been among the foremost critics of the \u201ccash crop\u201d approach to homes and homeownership, and we\u2019re honored to have our perspective spotlighted in this powerful film.\nIn today\u2019s Strong Towns Podcast, Charles Marohn sits down with Giorgio Angelini to talk about Owned from its initial conception to final form, and where Angelini thinks homeownership in the U.S. needs to go if we\u2019re to reckon with the monster we\u2019ve created. (Hint: Three letters\u2013CLT\u2014are part of his answer.)\nWe also have a big announcement to make. We\u2019ll be showing Owned at our recently announced regional gathering in Southern California, which will be held in Santa Ana, CA on December 5th, 2019. Giorgio himself will be there. People profiled in the film might be there. But most importantly, Chuck is treating everybody to popcorn. You heard it here first.\nTo sign up for more info on the Santa Ana gathering as it becomes available, click here. And to hear more from Giorgio Angelini and Chuck Marohn, check out this week\u2019s episode of the Strong Towns Podcast.