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Parking Requirements are a Mandate for Expensive Housing

An abundance of academic literature strongly suggests that parking requirements hurt American households by raising the cost of housing and increasing demand for automobile travel by artificially lowering the cost of car storage. Essentially, by reserving land for parking irrespective…

How Many New Homes Should California Build?

With each passing year, California’s housing crisis has grown worse. Past decisions by our state’s cities and counties to reduce the number of homes it is legal to build have caused high rents, low affordability, and an exodus of middle-income…

The Little Engine That Could (Fund Itself)

Can public transit fund itself by building housing on its land? That’s the fundamental question Common Ground California asks in their new white-paper, “Transit Value Capture for California.” The idea from authors Derek Sagehorn and Joshua Hawn is simple: public…

Evictions and Pandemic: Deadly, and Preventable

COVID-19 has wrought incalculable tragedy and destruction on Californians, much of which has been exacerbated by an eviction crisis that could have been largely prevented with more robust interventions. A new working paper from UCLA public health scholars finds that…

Why Do Homeowners Choose to Build ADUs?

Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) have been touted as a secret weapon that could make a big dent in California’s housing shortage. As regulators work to promote them, we must continue to investigate: what conditions actually lead to more ADU construction?…

The Impact of Minimums: A Little, or a Lot?

A new working paper analyzes an oft-forgotten aspect of land-use policy: The impact on affordability of minimum lot sizes, which cities use to set the smallest allowable square footage for individual parcels of land. This seemingly minor detail can have…

Meet Gabriella

We all know the rent is too damn high. In California, we’ve grown accustomed to housing shortages, crushing rents, endless commutes, escalating homelessness, destruction of agricultural lands, and the worst air pollution in the United States. But it doesn’t have…

The Bizarre (Yet Humorous) Math of the Embarcadero Institute

While one should avoid their labor becoming further empirical proof of Brandolini’s Law, a report by The Embarcadero Institute on the state’s housing shortage can hopefully prove instructive as to why one should be wary of organizations offering simplistic assessments…