Is California headed down the same road as Detroit?
Sounding much like a gubernatorial candidate who wants to fix the way California government works, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner addressed an audience of a few hundred small business owners at the California Small Business Day in Sacramento.
California is headed down the same road as Detroit, and that’s not a good thing, Poizner said. Pointing out that, in 1950, Detroit was one of the richest areas in the country and led the world in automobile manufacturing, he said that people have fled Detroit in droves, the car industry has fallen behind Japan and Europe and Detroit registers on the bottom of nearly every measurable category of civic life.
California’s Dire Housing Outlook
With California on track in 2008 to have the lowest number of housing permits (79,000) issued since statewide records have been kept (1954), and while California continues to grow by nearly a half-million new residents per year, the housing affordability crisis in California will continue to worsen.
Yes, we know that home prices are down as much as 20-30% in many parts of the state, but that will be short-lived. Why, you ask?
Well, there is an alignment of many unfortunate factors. Even though some land ready for development in the fastest growing parts of the state is virtually worthless today, there is not enough land identified for housing to really meet our growth needs, so in the not-too-distant future that land will again be producing $200,000 building lots.
Has the time come for Instant Runoff Voting?
Here in Los Angeles, an effort is underway to place an "instant runoff initiative" on the city’s Nov. 4 ballot.
As in San Francisco, L.A.’s instant runoff election would allow voters to vote by ranking their choices in numerical order. If no candidate earns a majority of the first choices, the last-place candidate is eliminated and votes are re-tallied based on voters’ preferences. The process is repeated until a candidate has received a majority of the votes for candidates who have not been eliminated.
Sound confusing? Yes, but it’s a system worth considering.