Why Can’t California Solve Its Housing Crisis?

rollingstone.com

16 points·jseliger··7 comments

A large influx of people causes problems for most cities. It causes not just housing issues, but also puts stress on public transit, traffic infrastructure, schools, water and sewage systems.

It's en vogue to blame California/Bay Area, but does any city or state have a good solution for this?

Yes, but according to the LA Times[1], California’s population growth rate is the lowest in recorded history.

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-...

Simple solution, add an apartment to your property and rent it out to someone how had never lived in your house in order to maintain your Prop 13 tax exemption. Virtually overnight the problem would be solved.

Hasn't Prop 13 made housing development a cost to cities? (i.e., once you sell a home, the property taxes don't cover the actual costs from the building?)

Can't parse your statement very well, but certainly Prop 13 has caused a lot of rigidity in the housing market by incentivizing people to hold onto their titles as long as possible, and never sell. And it has starved cities of funds and encouraged idle speculation and blight, since there's little cost to sitting on prime real estate indefinitely, and waiting for it to appreciate.

Taxes on buildings and construction are not conducive to general prosperity, but taxes on land are crucial to curbing speculation on scarce land. And incentivizing people to hold onto land indefinitely reduces dynamism.

I guess it it's a political question then Californians don't elect representatives reflecting Californians' interests?

Can't or won't?

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