Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America

Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America by Conor Dougherty

Housing has become too expensive. Zoning regulations make building difficult. Many people are living on the streets because there is no place they can afford to live. What should we do? Golden Gates focuses on attempts in San Francisco and California to improve the housing situation.

San Francisco is an extremely liberal city with some of the most expensive housing in the country. People want to move to the city for the many job opportunities. When this happened in the per-War age, cities such as Chicago and New York built up huge tracts fo dense housing. Alas, it is more challenging in San Francisco today. The different types of liberals often work against each other to prevent new housing. Preservationists want to keep the historic character of neighborhoods. They may mention fears of "gentrification" to stymie development. Housing advocates will sometimes fight against anything that is not 100% affordable housing. Environmentalists fear the environmental impacts of new housing. Those supporting new housing are typically the developers and unions that benefit from the act of construction. The voice of "future residents" are almost never heard.

Some people have stepped in to start to advocate for growth. Any development can be good. The difficulty of building housing makes developers concentrate on high end housing. Making development easier would allow for greater diversity in development. The high end of today is what will be the lower priced housing in the future. 

Rent control may benefit current renters, but it often has negative impacts on supply and future renters.

One issue is that today housing is viewed as an investment, not just a place to live. Thus people are more concerned with the impacts on property values. We have many subsidies for buyers, yet it is becoming increasingly difficult to buy.

California has gone through a few different phases of development. In the post-war era, the state focussed on building. Many cities and suburbs sprang up on vacant land with the state helping with the infrastructure (such as water projects.) Then things turned and zoning laws discouraged development. Now there is a shift to encourage more development in part by taking some control away form communities.

The book details stories of fights for housing legislation, as well as the advocacy for San Francisco development and the fight to support apartments in tony Lafayette. the stories combine to show a picture of what can be done to help with housing in the near future. However, the author is cautious to note that there have been many "solutions" that have not panned out. We will see what the future holds now.