In the United States more than almost anywhere else, wealth and income are concentrated among business owners and landlords. And that club, blessed by capitalism, is becoming increasingly difficult to join. Business owners and landlords tend to be about four times as wealthy as the average American. That’s more than almost any other country included […]
If you were to ask most Americans which is the poorest state in the nation, they might say Alabama or Mississippi, with their low average incomes and concentrations of African-American poverty. In fact, the state with the largest share of people in poverty is California. As the most populous state, it also has by far […]
Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, I find that the ratio in standard net worth NW between African-Americans and (non-Hispanic) whites was the same in 2007 as in 1983 (0.19) but then fell to 0.14 in 2016. The wealth ratio between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites climbed considerably between 1983 and 2007, from 0.16 […]
Sacramento City Council voted Tuesday to stop charging most city-imposed fees to developers who build new affordable housing. Starting Dec. 30, developers and nonprofits that build new affordable apartment units and single-family homes will no longer need to pay city fees that go toward services like infrastructure, parks, water and sewer, a city staff report […]
According to an October 21, 2018 Los Angeles Times article, experts “agree that the fundamental issue underlying the state’s housing crisis is that there are not enough homes.” In contrast, according to the article, is that “the public doesn’t believe it.” Only 13 percent of registered voters cited “too little homebuilding” as a principal reason […]
On October 23, the Los Angeles City Council will consider approving a 1,000% increase in their Street Damage Restoration Fee (SDRF) ordinance. This is a fee that companies or utilities pay when they must cut in to a street in order to fix or build new infrastructure like internet cables, gas lines, or water pipes. […]
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 […]
Academic researchers, state analysts and California’s gubernatorial candidates agree that the fundamental issue underlying the state’s housing crisis is that there are not enough homes for everyone who wants to live here. The problem, a new poll says, is that the public doesn’t believe it. A USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times survey found that just 13% […]
To hang on to state funding, Los Angeles will eliminate a disputed requirement that gave city politicians the power to block funding for homeless housing in their districts. The decision ends a longstanding practice that has drawn criticism from nonprofit groups that assist poor and homeless people: Under city regulations, L.A. has required developers seeking […]
Few would doubt that California’s single most important economic/political issue is a growing housing shortage which distresses millions of Californians and is the largest single factor in the state’s highest-in-the-nation poverty rate. The state says we need to be building 180,000 new housing units each year to keep up with population growth, replace housing that’s […]
In California, squatters can claim legal title to someone else’s property through an arcane legal procedure known as “adverse possession.” The law, enacted in 1872, originally was meant for abandoned rural properties that had gone fallow. In modern times, it’s mostly cited when there is a dispute over property lines. However, squatters can use it […]
CEQA strikes again! This time, sponsors of the CEQA litigation plan to take down a model urban development – 242 residential units surrounded by office buildings and retail space in Rancho Peñasquitos in San Diego County. But, the issue of the lawsuit provocateurs isn’t about the affect the development will have on the environment. Not […]
Looking at the numbers in the context of the rest of the country, though, helps explain the boom that we’ve seen throughout the state. Austin’s average of 1,341-square feet per $200,000 makes the city seem expensive and overpriced to people in parts of the state where your money goes a lot further. But it’s a […]
In the Bay Area, the poor are moving out, the wealthy are moving in and gentrification is picking up steam. The region had the highest income disparity between newcomers and out-going families of any major metro area in the country between 2010 and 2016, according to a new study by BuildZoom and UC Berkeley. The […]
“If you want to understand San Francisco’s self-inflicted housing crisis, look no further than the city’s very first zoning law, commonly known as the Cubic Air Ordinance, which set a disturbing standard for the city’s eventual missteps. Proposed in 1870, during a time of rampant real-estate speculation in a boomtown renowned for its lawlessness, the […]