Housing

To cope with an ongoing and severe housing shortage, California’s Legislature has passed laws that override local zoning laws to make it easier for developers to construct high-density “infill” projects within existing cities. What California’s policymakers have not done, however, is encourage the development of new cities on raw land. One such ...

Freedom – Not Density – Should Drive Land-Use Decisions By Steven Greenhut | November 10, 2023 SACRAMENTO – California has in recent years embarked on a remarkable legislative journey that has seen some of the state’s most-onerous land-use regulations rolled back. Lawmakers have recognized that government restrictions are the key ...

Time To Ask Why So ManySan Francisco Homes Are Vacant Steven Greenhut | November 3, 2023 Journalism 101 classes teach that every news story needs to include the five main Ws: Who, What, Where, When and Why. Yet most of the recent news reports about San Francisco’s newly implemented “Empty ...

It’s a scenario unfolding in downtowns across the U.S. after a pandemic that turned millions of Americans into remote workers, afflicting cities with vacant storefronts, crime concerns and fiscally strained transit systems,” reports Bloomberg. But it’s not just a matter of empty offices. People are spending less time in many downtowns. ...

California’s twin housing and homelessness crises continue to fester. The Legislature in recent years passed some useful bills promoting housing construction by streamlining the local approval process, such as Senate Bills 9 and 10 from 2021. Yet cities remain plagued with homeless encampments. Housing prices, despite soaring interest rates that ...

‘Nail houses’ serve as monuments of resistance to planners KERRY JACKSON | OCTOBER 13, 2023 Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck famously has said that outside of bombing it, rent control is the best way to destroy a city. Though not nearly as efficient as either of those, both planners and the ...

California bill would loosen housing rules along the coast National commentators always have a field day discussing the unusual new progressive legislation that California’s lawmakers send to the governor, with the latest eye-popping new law raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour. This year’s “crazy list” ...

How new city can change how California envisions its future: Part Two Edward Ring  |  September 29, 2023 Building a new city from scratch on 50,000 acres of cattle ranches is an audacious goal, even for the coterie of Silicon Valley billionaires who have been identified as behind the project. ...