What Recovery Looks Like – Oakland
Skylines emerge. Neighborhoods are transformed. And, life is forever changed. Count on all that happening when new development comes to town. And, yes – rents rise, too. Sometimes rising rents will displace existing residents, sometimes they won’t. But, to be sure – as time marches on so does growth, and all that it brings to […]
NIMBYs Invade Los Angeles
You know them best as NIMBYs (not in my backyard) and, if you’ve been watching development in the state you know how much clout they have over the local decisions on growth. NIMBYs aren’t alone, though. There are NIMTOOs (not in my term of office), BANANAs (build anything nowhere and nothing anywhere) and, by far, […]
An Answer for the GOP: Jack Kemp’s Philosophy
About now, the California Republican Party – surely licking the deep wounds it suffered during the mid-term election of 2018 – must be asking itself “What now?” Here’s an answer: How about an injection of some Jack Kemp? Kemp, now deceased, was an 18-term Member of Congress and Bush (41) cabinet secretary – and an […]
How Not to Subsidize New Housing in California
It is heartwarming to hear that in Richmond, with its super-high housing costs, a teacher is starting the academic year as a first-time homebuyer – affordably living in the town where she teaches public high school. Less gratifying is that this teacher and her fiancé bought their home at the expense of, say, a cop […]
Tackling Homelessness, Seattle Style
As has been reported in this space many times, the vexing problem of homelessness is a national disgrace but, so say the experts, it’s also a pretty tough problem to solve. Despite a recent survey by the Zillow Group implying there is a direct correlation between homelessness and the lack of affordable housing, most knowing […]
Laws Skewed to Favor Tenants over Landlords
In California, it’s legal to be a squatter. That is, the law allows individuals to occupy a rental house or apartment without a lease or filling out a rental application or going through any sort of renter-qualification process. They can just pick a vacant residence, live there and be virtually shielded from eviction. That’s precisely […]
Housing Crunch is Discriminatory
A NIMBY group may be satisfied with stopping a housing project in their neighborhood but I wonder if they realize that their efforts are discriminatory – creating displacement and relegating people of color to areas of greater poverty. According to a recently released study, that’s exactly what those efforts produce. The study, conducted by the […]
Gubernatorial Candidates Clash Over Housing
California households know it too well. State lawmakers – at least when asked – say it is. Academicians and pundits write about it all the time. Now, both Republican John Cox and Democrat Gavin Newsom – finalists in the race for the state’s top job, which voters will decide in November – agreed in a […]
When Will the Madness End?
NOTE: Recently in this space, I wrote about the welcome news that the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper editorialized in favor of a North County housing development. Although the project was later approved by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors (“the Board”), a lawsuit using the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was subsequently filed. The […]
An Important Local Vote for New Housing
Time was when you could almost always count on a daily metropolitan newspaper in California siding with environmentalists and other opponents of a proposed new development because of purported impacts it would have on the community or just because the local government wasn’t in favor of it. But, now in the face of a bona […]