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Housing in California is too expensive — but it doesn’t need to be.
If the state made it easier to build single-family homes — the kind that most Americans want, with space to raise children and enjoy the outdoors — we would not have seen the massive exodus of the past two decades.
Gavin Newsom denies the scale of the problem, citing the fact that California’s population has recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
But that’s largely due to immigration from abroad. Net domestic migration — to and from other U.S. states — has been negative since 2013. Californians are leaving.
It’s not hard to understand why. As The California Post’s Mary K. Jacob notes today, the median house price of $700,000 is seven times the median income.
Supply is artificially restricted by zoning rules, environmental regulations, and labor laws.
Trump’s immigration crackdown and tariff policies have raised prices for construction as well — but other states are suffering less than we are, because California’s own policies are worse.
Insurance is also a rising expense. California’s insurance rules combine impossible regulations with minimum accountability for consumers. As a result, insurers are fleeing the state — while homeowners struggle to receive payouts in the event of fires and other disasters.
Newsom and legislators like Democratic State Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco pride themselves on recent laws that promote housing developments.
But these laws are aimed at dense high-rises. They are often a giveaway to big developers. They leave the state’s anti-housing policies untouched.
The fact is that California policymakers remain ideologically opposed to single-family homes. It’s a cultural prejudice dating to the 1960s, when folk singers mocked “little boxes on the hillside/Made of tacky-tacky.”
But there is nothing shameful in wanting to own a freestanding home with a back yard, a swing-set, a garage, and room for some pets.
That’s the American dream, and it was a dream fulfilled for earlier generations of Californians.
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Environmentalists oppose what they call “suburban sprawl.” But we have the technology today to build energy-efficient and water-wise homes.
We can even solve traffic problems if we invest in basic infrastructure — not flashy projects like high-speed rail, but ordinary roads and rail.
There’s certainly enough money to invest in infrastructure — twice as much revenue in California today as there was a decade ago. But too much of it is wasted.
We have an expanding social welfare system for the poor — funded by the extreme rich.
And with talk of a “billionaire tax” in the air, the golden geese are looking to fly away.
California cannot survive without a healthy, thriving middle class that can invest in their homes.
Two centuries ago, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that the property-owning middle class was the foundation of democracy.
That remains true today.
Californians have been willing — until now — to pay a premium to live in America’s most beautiful state.
But the cost of housing has passed the tipping point.
It is time to set aside hostility to single-family homes, and make it easier to build homes Californians want.