The answer _is_ building more. (I'll say this before the people on Hacker News who are opposed to all private property suggest that "prop 13" is the problem. It's not.) The problem is they don't build enough. Build build build! They need the California State Government to overrule local zoning limits. We need to allow dense housing near rail lines and major roads. And I think that anywhere a single-family detached ho…
Yes, California and other places with housing problems need as-of-right policies as the article suggests. It's not simply zoning, it's removing all ability of local governments to hold things up, because people will use absolutely anything they can grab onto.
From a philosophical standpoint, people are sometimes uncomfortable with the idea of pre-empting local control—after all, don't they know better? But as the article points out, it's a coordination problem. There is a certain cost [1] to be paid in building housing, unfortunately, and you need a higher-level (in this case, state-wide) view to distribute that cost fairly.
> And I think that anywhere a single-family detached home currently exists, a 2-family home should be allowed.
Make it more like 4–8 (but maybe limited to 3-4 stories), and I'm in.
[1]: As the article points out, however, we think far too often only about the costs. I for one would welcome more neighbors.