By Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox : thedailybeast – excerpt
These single-family homes in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood face possible demolition if YIMBY state-imposed density laws are passed in Sacramento. Opponents of SB 827 convinced San Francisco City Supervisors to oppose the law that would hand local development controls to the state. photo by zrants
While home ownership remains the dream of most Americans, fewer and fewer people here can afford to own one.
The suburban house is the idealization of the immigrant’s dream—the vassal’s dream of his own castle. Europeans who come here are delighted by our suburbs. Not to live in an apartment! It is a universal aspiration to own your own home. —Los Angeles urbanist Edgardo Contini
For the better part of the past century, the American dream was defined, in large part, by that “universal aspiration” to own a home. As housing prices continue to outstrip household income, that’s changing as more and more younger Americans are ending up landless, and not by choice…
Given the surging demand among millennials and immigrants, why are builders not meeting the demand? The reasons vary, but, according to the National Association of Homebuilders, they include higher material costs, long permitting waits, labor shortages, and too few inexpensive lots…
“An overwhelming majority of millennials, including renters, want a home of their own.”…“Adjusted for housing costs, California has the largest share of its citizens living in poverty.”…
Dense housing is about three to seven times more expensive to build…
As to improving the environment, even the pro-density UC Berkeley Termer Center acknowledges that virtually banning urban fringe development would account for barely 1 percent of the state’s plan to reduce greenhouse gases (PDF)—pittance for policies certain to drive house prices and rents even higher…
As MIT’s Alan Berger has noted, modern suburban development also creates environmental benefits, including water retention, species habitats, tree cover, and improved health outcomes. In addition, suggests Britain’s Hugh Byrd, low-density communities are ideally suited for an eventual transition to solar energy generation in ways that high-density ones can’t emulate…
The shift to an ever more unequal, congested, and feudal society is not inevitable. We have the capacity to expand housing opportunities for future generations. There is no reason that we need to surrender the universal aspiration that for so long has defined our society… (more)
Who benefits from this rush to densify? That should be the question we ask, as we move away from the crowd into our own space and time to design our own future.