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Vote ‘yes’ on Prop. 15 to save vital CA social programs

Read the full article here >>> The revenue from this measure is expected to raise roughly $12 billion a year, 40% of which would go directly to schools and community colleges. The rest would go to county and municipal governments.…

The Planet is Begging Us to Drive Less

Climate disasters are mounting across the Golden State. While wildfires are currently raging from north to south, our neighbors are also contending with worsening heat waves and floods — and unless we act urgently, things will only get hotter in…

Progressive Transfer Taxes Can Help Fix Housing Inequality

Shane Phillips of UCLA’s Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies has a bold new proposal to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for affordable housing in Los Angeles by taxing real property sales. Key to this proposal is a formula…

Inventing Facts to Support NIMBYism: Academics Called Out for Unethical Research in Urban Studies

As the old saying goes, when you’re stuck in a deep hole, stop digging. This would be sound advice for Andres Rodrigues-Pose and Michael Storper, geographers at the London School of Economics and UCLA respectively, who recently wrote a bizarre…

Making ADUs Pencil: Opening Up New Sources of Funding

California has made great progress in enabling more homebuilding by removing barriers to the construction of backyard cottages, also known as “Granny Flats” or Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs). However, more work remains to be done, particularly to incentivize their construction…

A failure of leadership derailed housing reform in 2020

On Monday, we were on the cusp of passing SB 1120 — a bill which would have made it legal to build duplexes on single-family properties throughout the state. Despite vigorous opposition from affluent homeowners in exclusive communities, SB 1120…

How do other cities provide housing?

A globetrotting new whitepaper from SPUR looks at policy regimes in other countries that manage demand for housing with measurably more success than California. Three city profiles help give a sense of the bigger picture. Key takeaways: Vienna funds, builds,…