To the editor: Joel Kotkin’s piece is a welcome break from the orthodoxy, persistently promoted in your opinion pages, that relieving housing shortages calls for the densification of single-family neighborhoods. (“California’s housing problems require a better solution than densify, densify, densify,” Opinion, Feb. 18)
Kotkin cites analysis displaying that compelled densification does little to alleviate housing inflation. Extra importantly, he highlights an inconvenient reality.
In a current Public Coverage Institute of California survey, 70% of the state’s adults most well-liked single-family residences. In a separate ballot, a big majority of Californians opposed state laws banning single-family zoning.
“If we construct it, they may come” is an unreliable mode of social engineering. Simply take a look at L.A.’s largely empty bike lanes.
Shelley Wagers, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Kotkin bravely proposes an unorthodox answer to the housing disaster — discouraging multi-family improvement the place folks wish to stay, and as an alternative encouraging Californians in the hunt for inexpensive housing to sprawl out additional into the Central Valley and Inland Empire.
If this sounds precisely like our housing establishment, that’s as a result of it’s. Kotkin’s evaluation supplies nothing however a misunderstanding of market forces in service of the NIMBY insurance policies that introduced us into this mess.
I agree that some environmental guidelines stand in the way in which of latest housing and wish reform. Nonetheless, many of the land for housing in Southern California is already zoned for single-family residences, which Kotkin prefers. So why are Californians upset if surveys present they really need single-family properties? As a result of they will’t afford one!
Constructing denser housing in cities isn’t some authorities distortion of the free market. It’s permitting the housing market to increase provide the place demand is excessive. Individuals wish to stay in these areas — that’s why they’re costly.
I help streamlining rules to permit the development of extra single-family properties in areas the place it’s presently troublesome to take action. However I additionally strongly object to age-old NIMBY insurance policies that solely serve to protect our establishment.
Edward Williams, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Elected officers have to heed the knowledge of students equivalent to Kotkin and make the housing disaster a top-tier challenge.
The vote final December by the Los Angeles Metropolis Council to protect 72% of L.A.’s residential land for single-family zoning will severely hinder new housing building. It will reinforce decades-long inequalities in L.A.’s housing market.
Until individuals who have been lucky to purchase their properties throughout rather more inexpensive cycles acknowledge the urgency of this disaster, future generations won’t ever have the ability to obtain homeownership on job earnings alone. This impacts notably the “lacking center” class of lecturers, cops, nurses and others who make an excessive amount of to qualify for help but too little to purchase a house within the communities they serve.
Lisa Ansell, Beverly Hills
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To the editor: Kotkin’s proposed options to the state’s housing disaster are usually not viable options.
He touts the advantages of peripheral improvement as a approach to entice new homebuyers. The final time I checked, house costs are excessive in all places in L.A. County. The place is that this magical, low cost land situated?
Second, he says that distant work choices make peripheral improvement extra practicable. Exterior the tech sector, distant work isn’t a viable choice for many professions. Sarcastically, the extra tech jobs an space has, the extra house costs go up.
Say what you want about infill improvement, however many communities are usually not in favor of sprawling subdivisions. Infill improvement conserves land, reduces automobile dependence and may stay a part of the answer to the housing scarcity.
Kristen Kessler, Ventura
