California Housing Shortage
Perhaps the largest barrier to housing availability and affordability in places like California are permitting rules, land use restrictions, and construction codes that make it absurdly expensive, or even outright impossible, to construct new single or multi-family housing. Part of this is a conspiracy of current homeowners to protect and increase the value of their property — after all, new home construction inevitably reduces their property value (or future escalation) by adding competing inventory and/or by creating congestion […]