Golden Gates: Your Responses
I enjoyed having the chance to hear everyone’s perspective on this book. For those who did not read it, I would highly recommend finding a copy at your local library!
Be on the lookout for my own thoughts, which I will be publishing soon!
Response #1: Ji Son, Cal State LA professor, and LA Resident (in the form of tweets):
Response #2: Matt Jenny, former SF resident, and certified Big Tech employee:
I appreciated the way the book walked through the history of housing policy that led to today's shortage and explored the absurdity of having something that is both a basic human necessity and an investment tool, operated upon by the worst of market forces but without a free market to respond to those forces. To that end, I found the line on pg 212 to be a concise summary, with home prices screaming MAKE MORE OF THIS!
The natural next question for me that the book did not address was what active steps the government CAN take to make housing a more equitable public good. The book focused on bad zoning policies that governments should revoke; and it left me wanting a discussion of what positive and equitable policies can complement increased development.
Response #3: Brandon Danh, LA resident:
A lot of the time I can think of housing as just an issue. What I enjoyed the most about Golden Gates was that it fills out that world with all the the people in that story: from those fighting evictions to developers taking over those properties, from those fighting for more housing to those fighting against. It gave me a broader and fuller view of what the housing crisis is doing to California, and what is involved is changing the ways that we're addressing it.
Response #4: Daniel Patton, Virginia resident, Environmental Science background:
This book has been stuck in my head, and it has been a frequent topic of conversation in recent weeks as I move to a new city and consider the financial and social cost of where I make my home. I realize that between geography and community, housing is a core part of our identity demanding restoration though hard work. As someone with little knowledge of the real estate or housing world, I started Golden Gates with curious apprehension, unsure if the content would be over my head. I was pleasantly surprised to find a book that was not just accessible but also informative and engaging. Connor Dougherty brilliantly presents the complex set of stakeholders, events, and opinions without elevating a single group as moral champions. Dougherty finds a way to make city council meetings and local political campaigns not just interesting but humorous. Most compelling, beneath the statistics and anecdotes lies a subtle and persistent call to resist the tribal mentality that inhibits effective collaborative solutions. I often feel discouraged when my eyes are opened to new problems I am unable to solve. However, I finished Golden Gates with a feeling of optimism for the future of the California housing crisis not because the situation is improving, but because I am convinced that there is a diverse collection of individuals, often with conflicting interests, working to solve a complex problem together.
Response #5: Aaron Bickel, former SF resident
As someone that lives in Marin county, I really value preserved natural space such as the Marin Headlands. Housing development doesn’t need to threaten spaces like that, but can help protect it through policies that promote density.
Response #6: Kyle Teegarden, Seattle resident, also certified Tech employee:
I found the book astonishing. Not astonishing in terms of the housing problems that were described--that much is obvious to anyone who has walked through the streets of San Francisco or taken a momentary glance at housing prices across the west coast. No--astonishing in that I cannot comprehend why people find these housing problems surprising. From 2012 to 2016, San Francisco added 400,000 jobs, and 50,000 housing units. What did people expect would happen?? The other 350,000 people politely decline to take jobs out of concern for gentrification?
The solution is blindingly obvious--build more housing. But I find it even more astonishing to see people that both oppose housing and bemoan the effects of the housing deficit, such as homelessness, gentrification, and sprawl. It's like seeing someone enthusiastically shooting themselves in the foot while simultaneously being shocked that they cannot walk.
Ultimately, this book describes a tragedy. A hundred years ago, with far less technology and information, cities were able to grow and provide housing to citizens. Now they seemingly cannot. The difference is regulation. This book details a spectacular failure in governmental intervention that has directly led to the unnecessary suffering of the most vulnerable people in our society. Redlining, environmental regulations, labor union handouts, rent control, restrictive zoning, etc. These are failures of government that keep the market from naturally providing the housing that people need. The solution is a freer market, not a more regulated one.
This is, of course, deeply inconvenient politically. The inability of politicians on the left to admit their failure and adopt pro-market policies means more people living on the street, more families displaced, more crime, more racial inequity, and less opportunity for immigrants.
Response #37 Anonymous Los Angeles resident (and friend) works in Affordable Housing Development
One of the quotes that most resonated with me is from the backstory of Rick Holliday, the first Executive Director of Eden Housing: "the on-the-job lesson he walked away with was that the things they told you in planning school were not the things they told you in real life" (pg. 87). That pretty much sums up the past five years of my life, during which I attended planning school and have worked in the affordable housing industry in Los Angeles. As an academic discipline, urban planning (at least as I experienced it) is concerned with promoting density, public transit, neighborhood health/ stability, and environmental sustainability. In the real world, urban planners either guide the processes of for-profit development or work on the fringes to promote inclusive urban spaces against all odds. In my experience, this is true of the affordable housing industry as well. I decided to work in affordable housing because it seemed complicated and challenging and would hopefully create some tangible good for society. While I can confirm that affordable housing is indeed good for society, complicated, and challenging, I have also come to see the vast limits of the industry. Here are my reflections on the book in three parts:
1) The costs of development are too damn high
I really do believe in what affordable housing developers and advocates are doing; developing and/or preserving housing affordability is an important exercise in wresting property from the capitalistic system, especially when corporate business models rely on evicting low- and middle-income residents in favor of high-income ones. I really admire Sister Christina's pragmatism in purchasing the Buckingham Apartments from that hedge fund for millions of dollars. However, this just drives the point home that high housing costs reflect the mismatch between the existing supply of housing units and extremely high demand. This is especially true for affordable housing, which costs anywhere between $400-850k per unit to build (pg. 156). Case in point: there has recently been a lot of pushback in Los Angeles over Proposition HHH, the $1.2 billion bond measure for permanent supportive housing (specifically for homeless individuals/families) discussed in the book. Despite allegations of misuse, for the most part, building affordable housing is just super expensive because of 1) prevailing wage requirements for projects that use public funds, 2) high costs of development generally (pg. 157, 158), and 3) a system of land use regulation that empowers existing property owners at the expense of prospective residents ("Sue the Suburbs" chapter). We can't think about solving the housing crisis in California without facing the consequences of low-density development and the inefficiencies of dealing with real estate and development, especially in high-cost markets.
2) Development as "brain damage"
Affordable housing development is really hard to build. When I was in graduate school, a professor of practice (aka not an academic) used the term "brain damage" to describe his years of experience in the affordable housing industry. I continue to hear this term in my working life. Although there's probably a more politically correct/ sensitive way to describe the challenges of our work, I think the term captures the onerous and crazymaking process of affordable housing development. The "Sue the Suburbs" chapter rightly captures the tragicomic nature of this industry. Dennis O'Brien paying to defend the city of Lafayette from Sonja Trauss/SF BARF/CaRLA's lawsuit *and* paying for Sonja Trauss/SF BARF/CaRLA's legal fees is the epitome of affordable housing insanity. That is definitely the kind of thing that affordable housers vent (brag?) about over drinks at happy hour. Like city manager Steve Falk, I sympathize with the cause of affordable housing and increased density. However, I don't know if I personally have the stomach for the particular methods in this case, seeing how it affected a fellow affordable houser. Generally, Sonja's arc in the book challenges my thinking - I am put off by her bulldozing and callousness; as described on page 226, her behavior seems almost Trumpian in terms of using extreme tactics/ antics to bring forth desired political change. But is that what's needed to disrupt the status quo? Is this what's required to force political change, or is this just the specific political moment we live in, or is this our new, slightly terrifying, Twitter-induced reality?
A different side of the craziness of affordable housing: "It was a well-known absurdity of the affordable housing system that it frequently cost more per square foot to build no-frills nonprofit apartments than it did to build high-end for-profit condos" (pg. 164). This quote alone describes why I am not long for the affordable housing industry. While a small army of niche developers and financial consultants labors tirelessly against all odds to build multi-family apartment buildings, and while long-term housing is the best way to promote health, safety, and stability among people who are homeless, the work is a) a drop in the bucket compared to what the demand is, and b) it's incredibly expensive and perhaps not even the best way to promote housing affordability among low-income and/or special needs populations. It's certainly not the most efficient way to deal with a homelessness crisis. I've often felt that the work I do is important, but it cannot and should not be the only solution to the housing crisis.
3) Throw the kitchen sink at it
I think Conor Dougherty has the right idea throughout the book - the solution to California's housing crisis needs to come from as many angles as possible. Philanthropy/ tech-bro-guilt-money has a role to play. Allowing/forcing increased density in cities has a role to play. Spunky and shrewd nuns have a role to play. "Traditional" affordable housing development (using Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, or LIHTC) has a role to play. Innovation/ disruption in the construction industry (a la Factory OS's modular construction) has a role to play (sidenote on modular: I recently attended a virtual conference where modular was discussed. One of the speakers made the point that modular is the future of construction, but a push from the government will likely be needed to allow the industry to scale up, just as the federal government did with hybrid and electric cars).
I think the point is made in the book that, as market rate real estate prices and development costs continue to skyrocket, the only players able to participate are hedge funds and the uber-wealthy. In this new Gilded Age that we live in, I think the only solution that makes sense to me is harnessing the almighty power of the government to promote housing affordability in creative ways. Regulate/ incentivize hedge funds and corporate landlords to promote housing affordability. Regulate/ incentivize the wealthiest corporations in such a way that they must pay all employees/contractors a living wage in whatever city/ region they live in. Vastly increase the amount of Section 8 vouchers to prevent displacement of lower-income households from high-cost markets. Implement a system of guaranteed income for low-income families (if the cost makes people nervous, use a lottery system to help a lucky cohort of recipients build financial stability). The solutions need to be both immediate and long-term - that's where Prop HHH went wrong, I think (i.e. focusing on incredibly expensive long-term investments while the homelessness crisis continues to worsen). As broad policy changes and long-term investments are being implemented, there are the immediate crises of evictions, homelessness, and housing cost-burdened households living paycheck-to-paycheck. We don't consider housing to be a human right in this country, but decent, safe, and long-term shelter is crucial for human flourishing and worth investing in.
Affordable housing developers love to gather and talk about the state of the industry. At one such event, I heard a former public official say something along the lines of: "It has taken over 30 years to get to this place of extreme unaffordability, and we need to accept that the solutions will take that amount of time, as well." Part of me hears that and feels like that's a reasonable thought. Another part of me wants to reject that kind of thinking completely; we have to think and plan boldly. In lieu of unleashing an army of Sonja Trausses on the world, I actually think about Robert Moses, the man who remade New York City (pg. 72). He's infamous for clearing slums, destroying and cutting off minority race neighborhoods, and wielding governmental authority with impunity. Obviously, I don't think we should be doing that. But I believe there's something to be said about thinking big about urban transformation. I don't think that what Robert Moses did would be legally feasible today, but I think we can learn something from his effective - if questionable - use of power. I think Poppa Joe has the right idea. Housing is just one element of life in America that desperately needs transformative investment. We just need to be really thoughtful about using public and private resources efficiently.