Housing Policy

Steven Greenhut | 11.1.2024 7:30 AM

The average age of an owner-occupied house in California is 45 years, which is a reminder that your home was probably built relatively recently. I was an adult when my "historic" midcentury ranch was first sold (for around $50,000 including the lot). It was part of a futuristic neighborhood of 200-plus properties plopped in a farm field. Everything around me—including our city's Gold Rush-era downtown—was once a fallow field.

Sorry for being Captain Obvious, but many people seem to have forgotten that our cities, suburbs and small towns were the product of ingenuity, investment, creativity and construction. It's not a coincidence the American Dream of homeownership has slipped away—with home prices in California now topping $900,000—after years of no-growth rules, urban-growth boundaries and other limitations on development.

The Legislative Analyst's Office nine years ago pointed to a problem that's only gotten worse: chronic underbuilding, especially in coastal communities. Developers could easily meet the demand. But government meddling—from voter-backed slow-growth restrictions to state environmental rules—makes it inordinately costly and difficult for them to do so.

In recent years, the housing crisis has gotten so troubling that even California's progressive........

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