That's the number of housing units the state of California will have to add to create enough supply to bring down sky-high housing costs. It's a big number, unlikely to be substantially reduced by a program of subsidies. Most experts think structural zoning changes are the more important first step:
Read MoreA review of the April 30, 2019 meeting of the San Jose City Council reveals a potential problem that seems seeping through our community. It’s the idea that allowing business to be conducted is a gift, and the giving is being done by cities around the San Francisco Bay.
Read MoreFree market advocates vehemently oppose hiring constraints based on race, gender, ethnicity, gender-orientation, religion, country of birth, and any other non-merit-based parameter. Some San Jose activists, however appear to see the issue differently, and are re-introducing the concept of color, country-of-birth, and gender-bars to hiring to the public debate.
Read MoreNobody doubts that housing costs are rising in California overall, and also in the San Jose metropolitan area. When discussing how that rise impacts affordability, of course, one needs to compare that rise with potential increases in incomes.
Read MoreAlejandra Lazo of the Wall Street Journal (June 15, 2019) takes a hard look at how California spends money to address homelessness,and if it's working.
Read MoreJoel Kotkin mourns what's happening in California:
"In California and other progressive states, woke policies are clearly not helping the poor. Indeed despite all the progressive rhetoric, African Americans and Latinos suffer considerably higher rates of poverty in California than in the rest of the nation; the Golden State already suffers the highest percentage of poor people among the states…
Read MoreLA Mas, an urban-design non profit in Los Angeles, has come up with an innovative approach to maximizing property ownership in a way that addresses affordable housing issues: let people build rental units in their back yards and get financial incentives if they rent to Section 8 voucher holders.
Read MoreOne of the first casualties of increasing partisanship in American politics (and we are seeing it in San Jose politics, too) is the lost art of compromise, as factions demand more and more from a tax base that struggles to meet liabilities from years past.
Read MoreThere's a lot of talk about how new development, such as Google at Diridon, might force lower income residents to move to far-flung corners of the Bay Area, or become homeless altogether. A concerning thought, but does the data really support the fears?
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