How ‘Local Control’ over housing shifts the Californians

By Stan Oklabdzia, special for Calmatters

This comment was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

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All over the world, cities have struggled to understand how to provide more accessible homes to people in need.

In Copenhagen, Denmark, so -called Social housing represents 20% from the housing stock in the region. In Auckland, New Zealand, a set of reforms initiated by the national government in 2021, creates a construction boom that dropped rent by 28%S

In contrast, coastal cities in California have implemented a bilateral strategy for low-income housing over the last few decades-the system of highways and internal cities off.

With the California legislative body to consider Senate Bill 79A bill that automatically allows a dense multi-family home near high frequency transit stops, many in the most exclusive cities of the country have found their eyes filled with tears in The prospect of losing “local control”.

But California’s centuries -old policy on handing over the policy of using the land of cities and cities allowed the rich in the jobs coastal areas to build gilded walls around them with them with segregationistS The result is a mass displacement of all, except for the largest on the coastal subway such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego to the internal regions such as the San Joaquin Valley, the Internal Empire and more, and more, and more, out of the country entirelyS

Even the largest defenders of the neighborhood agree that California is strangled by a severe housing crisis. According to the joint center of housing research at Harvard University, 6 of the first 10 metropolitan areas With the highest share of households working on costs, they are in California. About 1 in 3 tenants in the Los Angeles subway area spend 50% or more of their home -made tax revenue. And since last year the city of San Francisco had around 1000 more homeless people than all of MissouriS

How we have come to this point is not mysterious, nor is it contradictory – at least for those who study the problem. For about 40 years, California simply has not produced enough new homes to adjust the search.

The further exacerbation of this shortage is the fact that the greater part of the new homes in California are shoreAlthough coastal cities are there The bigger part of the state’s jobs are locatedS Earth use policy is less implemented in places such as San Bernardino or San Joaquin County, where there is still an underdeveloped land that grows and where the poorer, mostly non-white communities have no resources to oppose development as their rich coastal counterparts.

The result is a balance that does not serve anyone but the wealthy coastal homeowners. About 11% of San Joaquin County Residents and 7.6% of Riverside County Residents Drive more than 90 minutes every time to engage in to workS More than just devastating the lives of those traveling-most of whom earn less than $ 49,000 a year and work with blue collars-all of these cars on the highway is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissionsS

Also, the displaced newcomers, who are pushed for hours of their work, eventually compete for scarce domestic domestic housing, which makes housing more expensive in regions where there are less high-paying jobs.

Accounts such as SB 79 are needed, as the policy of using land in the city has the potential to adversely affect the lives of many thousands more people than those who currently live within its boundaries. When the costs are borne by everyone, then it is fair for everyone to receive a vote.

If politics affects the whole country, then the state – not the city – must have the last word.

The residential crisis in California leads to a permanent human misery and degradation of the environment. It also proves that control can no longer be local when the consequences are universal.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.