"The Predictable Result of Public Policy"

"Until then, the term 'homeless' most often referred to people who had lost their homes in natural disasters or wars. But things were beginning to change in the 1970s, when a sequence of seemingly unrelated events conspired to drive people into the streets."

Mitchell Landsberg and Gale Holland at the Los Angeles Times present "[t]he real story of how L.A. became the epicenter of America’s homeless crisis."

"To Put Down Roots and Then Oppose New Development"

"Glaeser and Gyourko go one step further. They hypothesize that as Sun Belt cities have become more affluent and highly educated, their residents have become more willing and able to use existing laws and regulations to block new development. They point to two main pieces of evidence. First, for a given city, the slowdown in new housing development strongly correlates with a rising share of college-educated residents. Second, within cities, the neighborhoods where housing production has slowed the most are lower-density, affluent suburbs populated with relatively well-off, highly educated professionals. In other words, anti-growth NIMBYism might be a perverse but natural consequence of growth: As demand to live in a place increases, it attracts the kind of people who are more likely to oppose new development, and who have the time and resources to do so. 'We used to think that people in Miami, Dallas, Phoenix behaved differently than people in Boston and San Francisco,' Gyourko told me. 'That clearly isn't the case.'"

Rogé Karma at The Atlantic writes that "[t]he Sun Belt, in short, is subject to the same antidevelopment forces as the coasts; it just took longer to trigger them.

"Blame Jane Jacobs"

"Federal guidelines can make the environment more amenable, but the solutions by and large cannot come from central planning; states and cities and towns will need to reform their rules and processes to allow the housing supply to grow where people want to build. The goal of policy makers, in any case, shouldn't be to move Americans to any particular place, or to any particular style of living. They should instead aim to make it easier for Americans to move wherever they would like—to make it equally easy to build wherever Americans' hopes and desires alight."

At The Atlantic, Yoni Appelbaum asks, "Who Killed American Mobility?"

And Derek Thompson points to similar problems in Britain.

"Homeowners, She Said, Are Concerned About Property Values and Are Resistant to Policies They Believe Might Adversely Affect Them"

"'There are a lot of homeowners in L.A. who lean left, are sympathetic to the problem of homelessness and are generally supportive of these solutions,' Thomas said. 'But on a neighborhood block, they're incentivized quite differently.'"

Liam Dillon in the Los Angeles Times reports on a survey of homeowners and renters about housing.

"Collectively the Busiest Shipping Hub in the Western Hemisphere"

"The consequences will play out in the months ahead as pocketbook issues quite likely decide the presidential election. But regardless of the election’s outcome, we should understand that Southern California is never a place apart from U.S. politics and its dilemmas. Instead, these have deep roots in the region. And today, the region continues to invest in imports and real estate as vehicles for prosperity — even as the adverse costs accumulate in national politics."

James Tejani at the Los Angeles Times connects economic past and present via the San Pedro Bay.

"A Stain on the Constitution"

"In response, the California Real Estate Assn., the forerunner of today's California Assn. of Realtors, put forward a ballot initiative to amend the Constitution to require a public vote before such housing could be built. The campaign argued that voters should get a say because public housing creates taxpayer debts. The effort also relied heavily on anti-communist and segregationist messaging."

Liam Dillon at the Los Angeles Times reports on efforts Article 34 of the California Constitution.

"The General Sense of Disarray and Dysfunction That Is Permeating Everything"

"The parallel to national politics is the potential for a seismic backlash in November among voters unsettled by all the disruptions to daily life--from inflation to Covid-19 to crime--that have persisted through Joe Biden's presidency. That continued turbulence has undermined the implicit promise of his candidacy: to return the nation to something approaching normalcy after all the turmoil of the Donald Trump presidency."

Ronald Brownstein at CNN looks at political trends in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

"'Freedom of Choice,' Blazoned by Realtors on L.A. Freeway Billboards Half a Century Ago, Divides America Today"

"White Californians overwhelmingly voted for the Realtors' proposition in November 1964, on the same ballot that Lyndon Johnson crushed Goldwater in the presidential race. The victory was so sweeping that even after Proposition 14 was ruled unconstitutional, Reagan adopted the Realtors' message as his own. The Realtors' use of the libertarian language of individual freedom to maintain social conformity has unified conservatives ever since."

Gene Slater at the Los Angeles Times writes that "[o]nly strong government action could have overcome the Realtors' legacy of racially exclusive suburbs and organized prejudice."

"If All You Care About Is Money, I Suggest You Go to Texas"

"Elberling, who before the pandemic spearheaded new restrictions on skyscrapers in San Francisco, is among those who believe the city was being overrun by people who arrived for one reason.                                                                                                                                        "'The motivation got to this get-rich-quick attitude,' he said. 'And that isn't what our city is about.'"

David Ingram at NBC News reports on the trend of tech workers moving out of San Francisco.

"Turning Los Angeles into an Intentionally Segregated City"

"Freeways created physical barriers that made any non-white presence on the 'white' side of the road conspicuous—and thus easier to target by law enforcement. One 1943 freeway marketing pamphlet, designed to win over reluctant white communities, boasted of the freeway's fortress-like impermeability and ability to preserve 'neighborhood character.'
"As Rothstein told NPR in 2017: 'The "Underwriting Manual" of the Federal Housing Administration recommended that highways be a good way to separate African American from white neighborhoods. This... was a matter of government regulation.'"

Matthew Fleischer at the Los Angeles Times discusses how racial segregation was affected by the impact of L.A. freeways.

"Cohn's Impression on Trump Was Indelible"

"For Trump, litigation became a way of life, a tool to get attention, to bring his enemies to book, and to achieve strategic advantage. The flaw in the American system is that, if you are willing to spend the money, scorched-earth tactics often work. In short, he abused the process of a lawsuit, making it into something it was never intended to be—a way to win out against whomever he considered to be his adversary."

Slate runs an excerpt from James D. Zirin's Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits.

And Nathan Taylor Pemberton at The Baffler watches the Where's My Roy Cohn? documentary.

"It Isn't a Failing Economy That's Putting Residents Out on the Streets, Though. It's a Booming One"

"It's unusual for the head of one committee to single-handedly spike a piece of legislation, especially if it's the top priority of another committee head in your own party. To Lane and others, Portantino's decision signified something more than Democrat-on-Democrat violence. It was emblematic of a kind of generational warfare that pits the 'younger and more diverse population in California,' says Lane, 'who have lots of student debt, are trying to rent an apartment, need to be in an urban environment near jobs, and are unable to find housing' against 'an older generation of boomers who own their homes and resist multifamily housing, upzoning, and . . . are still a powerful force' in California politics."

Tessa Stuart at Rolling Stone asks, "Why Can't California Solve Its Housing Crisis?"

"Progressive Boomers Are Making It Impossible For Cities To Fix The Housing Crisis"

"'Most of the abuse I got came from older suburban or retired folks, and always from people who considered themselves progressive,' said Rob Johnson, a Seattle City Council member who retired in April after three years in office. During his tenure, he supported proposals to increase housing density, expand public transit and establish safe use sites for drug addicts.
"Despite representing a constituency with bright-blue voting records on immigration, reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality, Johnson's progressive positions on local issues provoked a large and organized backlash."

Michael Hobbes at HuffPost writes that "just as previous generations of anti-change activists used procedural arguments ('states' rights,' 'local control') to oppose progressive policies, today's anti-growth advocates employ similar arguments about community participation and government processes."

"They Will Have to Accept to Live Differently Themselves"

"While by no means a panacea, increasing the density of America's cities is a prerequisite for any remotely left-leaning vision of the future. And right now, neighborhoods zoned to accommodate only single-family homes are standing in the way of the society everyone in liberal America claims to want."

Benjamin Schneider at The Nation calls restrictive residential zoning "Liberal America's Single-Family Hypocrisy."

"The Similarities in the Language Used When Referring to the Homeless and How Trump Refers to Immigrants"

"Dunsky has witnessed Venice's transformation from a battleground for gangs to one that boasts several Michelin-starred restaurants. A self-proclaimed progressive, Dunsky says he fears that recent gentrification has altered people's sympathies. 'There is a fever of money in Venice that has nothing to do with its past. Whatever progressive elements were historically here have dwindled, and they're being replaced by tech money.'"

Scott Johnson and Peter Kiefer at The Hollywood Reporter describe, in regards to homelessness in Venice, "residents who complain about the problem and then go on to criticize every proposed remedy."

"It's Ground Zero in the United States Right Now for This Kind of Intensity of High Housing Costs and Displacement"

"If Josephine Hardy’s landlord successfully evicts her from her home of 47 years in July, she said her first stop would probably be a relative’s couch hours away. After that, she doesn't know.
"Three generations of Hardy’s family are now being forced out of their home of five decades, a painful process that began after an engineer at Intel purchased the three-unit property they have long rented in West Oakland."

Sam Levin at The Guardian reports on how black working-class residents are being pushed out of Oakland, California.

"Beverly Hills by the Sea"

"There are still throngs of tourists at the boardwalk on the weekend. There are still incense sticks for sale, and henna tattoos, and gutter punks loitering about. There are still the Sidewalk Café and Small World Books, the same slices of pizza for a few dollars and the same sunglasses for $5.99. There are still Muscle Beach and paddle tennis and basketball and handball, still music blasting from boom boxes and still Harry Parry. Yes, there is a newly opened Poké Shack, and the Jamaicans who sell their homemade CDs now accept credit cards via Square on their iPhones.
"There is a sort of cultural inertia on the boardwalk that's impervious to gentrification. The buildings just off the boardwalk, however, are a different story."

Hillel Aron in a 2017 L.A. Weekly article explains "How Venice Became the Most Expensive Neighborhood in Los Angeles."

"That Brings Us to the M Word"

"One Wednesday when I am out tallying all the construction sites for this story, I see Ray Chavez carrying his baby daughter on a walk around the neighborhood, enjoying yet another warm winter day in our beloved community by the sea. It occurs to me that his little girl will have to learn about the old Venice from her father's stories.
"He'll tell her about growing up here, how parents all let their kids roam the town with the only restriction that they be back in time for dinner. And he'll tell her how much her grandfather paid for the house she lives in, and she'll laugh at the impossibility of it."

Martin L. Jacobs in The Argonaut discusses the "mansionization" of East Venice. 

"Urban Suburbia"

"'The first wave of suburbanites were people attracted to urban environments, like artists, who had cultural capital but needed affordable housing and liked racially and culturally diverse environments,' said Christopher Niedt, a sociologist at Hofstra University and the academic director of its National Center for Suburban Studies. 'The art they create attracts people who are less tolerant of diversity and want to create a more homogeneous environment.'
"Ride-hailing apps are also popular with this cohort, which largely grew up in places without much public transportation. Uber and Lyft remind some customers of rides home with their parents or their parents' friends because the driver always knows where to go and little communication is needed.
"'You can depend on the car being there, kind of like depending on mom or dad,' said Eden Sutley, a 28-year-old TV producer from Lafayette, La., who lives in the East Village."

Aaron Elstein at Crain's New York Business discusses the suburbanization of New York City.

"A Tireless Fighter"

"It was a Venice which was a counter cultural mecca, a community of small individual two story or 24 foot high homes and duplexes, of homeowners with small incomes, working stiffs, professionals and students who voted Democrat or Progressive, or Peace and Freedom, of a community which was tolerant and supportive of dissent and outright opposition to moneymaking, greed, exploitation and racial and gender chauvinism."

The Free Venice Beachhead remembers activist Moe Stavnezer.