Show notes
A sweeping history of humanity’s most fundamental creation―the home―and its effects on the land, cities, and people themselves.
Americans
spend, on average, 90 percent of their lives indoors, with two-thirds
of that time spent in their homes. Globally, the construction and
maintenance of residential buildings account for a staggering portion of carbon emissions. In this timely
and fascinating work, architect and urban-planning scholar Stefan Al
deftly weaves together archaeology, engineering, social history, and
environmental science to explain how our homes have developed through
the ages and in turn shaped civilization and the planet itself.
From
tiny pit-houses in the Levant and Mesoamerica thousands of years ago to
soaring skyscrapers in Dubai, New York, and Shanghai today, Dwelling on Earth: The Past and Future of the Places We Call Home (W. W. Norton & Company, 2026) takes
readers on a swift and absorbing tour of the evolution of human
habitation. Whisking readers from ancient Pompeii to contemporary Hong
Kong, industrial-age Liverpool to postwar Levittown, Al shows how our
choices in housing have both reflected and affected ideas about gender
roles, privacy, and comfort. Discover how seemingly mundane
elements―like door-knockers
and corridors―have altered everyday interactions, and how material
choices have remade the planet’s surface. He also confronts the darker
side of domesticity, exposing the unintended consequences of our
architectural choices across millennia, including smoke-filled Neolithic
dwellings, deadly fires in crowded Roman apartment buildings, and
worsening social isolation in car-dependent suburbs. Finally, he
examines the myths and reality of future housing, including 3D-printed
homes and space architecture built by robots.
Drawing from personal experiences
across global cities and professional insights, Al illuminates how our
choices in housing continue to influence everything from social
relationships to climate change, ultimately arguing
that understanding this rich history is crucial for building a more
sustainable future. With billions more people needing housing in the
coming decades, Dwelling on Earth reveals how we might transform humanity’s defining challenge into our greatest opportunity.
HOST BIO: Alex Hallbom is an urban planner and writer based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
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