Making California more affordable: An expert panel
Event Information
Panelists
Marc Joffe, Fellow, California Policy Center, and President, Contra Costa Taxpayers Association
Ben Metcalf, Managing Director, Terner Center for Housing Innovation
Caroline Danielson, Vice President of Research and Senior Fellow, Public Policy Institute of California
Samuel Trachtman, Senior Researcher, Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative
Affordability is one of the central issues for California voters this election season, and for good reason. Adjusting for cost of living moves California’s poverty rate from near average to among the highest in the nation. According to California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, to qualify for a mortgage on a mid-tier California home, a household would need income of $221,000 — more than twice the state median. Electricity prices in California are now the highest in the continental U.S.
BESI recently published a white paper series, Making California More Affordable: A Policy Roadmap, which diagnoses the core drivers of the affordability crisis, and proposes policy and governance reforms to improve things. The series points to three main drivers of unaffordability:
- Longstanding growth restrictions that generate housing shortage
- Well-meaning, but poorly implemented, regulations with regressive economic effects
- Underperforming public services hampered by complexity and fragmentation
This “author meets critics”-style event will put the series author, BESI researcher Samuel Trachtman, in conversation with three leading California policy experts to discuss how policy and political reform can set the state on a trajectory towards greater affordability.