Blog Posts

(Click here to add your name as a signer of this open letter.) Open Letter to Senator Aisha Wahab April 17, 2025 Dear Chair Wahab, California is in an acute housing crisis.  This unprecedented crisis warrants unprecedented reforms.  The roots…

In Truckee, California, where median home prices exceed $1.1 million, workers essential to the resort community struggle to find housing they can afford. However, despite California’s nation-leading ADU reforms and the potential for rental income, few homeowners in the small…

California faces a severe housing shortage, with seven of America’s ten most expensive metros. While building more housing is critical to address this shortage, building costs in California far exceed those in other western states. In “The High Cost of…

California YIMBY is advancing its most ambitious legislative agenda yet—one that tackles the three biggest impediments to ending California’s housing shortage: legalizing housing where it’s most needed, streamlining approvals, and reducing costs. If we can pass this package—and fend off…

California cities remain racially segregated, with significant economic disparities between predominantly minority and white neighborhoods. In “The Long-Run Effects of America’s Largest Residential Racial Desegregation Program: Gautreaux,” researchers Eric Chyn, Robert Collinson, and Danielle H. Sandler examined what happened when…

Eight states have recently passed laws allowing smaller homes like duplexes and townhomes, also known as “middle housing,” in areas previously restricted to only large, expensive houses. In “Missing No More: Planners Should Harness Private Developers to Build Middle Housing,”…

Over the past three decades, most new homes in California have been built in or near the wildland-urban interface (WUI). As catastrophic fires in the WUI grow worse with climate change, effective fire-risk reduction strategies are essential.  In Land Use…

Housing costs are a contentious political issue in most American cities. Demands for building more “affordable housing” run up against a variety of politically-powerful stakeholders, who are ambivalent (at best) about neighborhood change; many constituents are fiercely opposed to even…

As America’s population ages, the need to provide safe and efficient mobility from far-flung suburbs and subdivisions grows more acute. Our current transportation systems, land use, and development patterns all but mandate private car ownership and driving – which is…

Over the past eight years, California lawmakers have adopted dozens of reforms designed to make it easier for homeowners to build Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), which are sometimes referred to as “granny flats,” in-law units, or casitas.  To help homeowners,…