Tag Archives: California

A possible timeline of 50 years to build an American community for 50,000 people

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One source suggests it might take 50 years to complete a proposed community in California for 50,000 people:

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A group of Silicon Valley investors aiming to build a new city in California has collected enough support from residents to place a key zoning-change measure on the upcoming ballot.

The campaign said Tuesday it has surpassed the required 13,000 signatures, gathering the endorsement of more than 20,000 residents of Solano County, a largely agricultural community located northeast of San Francisco. The initiative, if approved by voters in the county, would pave the way from construction to begin by overturning restrictive zoning laws from the 1980s that limit development outside existing cities…

Completing the project in the region between the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento could take as long as 50 years.

Building a new community is a sizable project. Is 50 years a normal time frame or longer or short than what we might expect? A few thoughts:

  1. The United States has a history of fast-growing communities. A city like Chicago grew from over 4,000 residents in 1840 to nearly 1.7 million people in 1890. That is fast growth. Or think of boom towns in the West. Or suburbs that in the postwar era that gained tens of thousands of residents in short periods of time. Most communities do not grow as quickly.
  2. Plenty of news stories and opinion pieces in recent years have weighed in on development processes in California. If it takes longer to build in general in California, then 50 years might be longer than expected in the United States.
  3. Going from few residents to 50,000 residents in a few decades is an accomplishment. But the size of the community at its buildout would not even put it in the top 100 cities in California by population.
  4. What are the expected growth rates at different points in those 50 years? How many years from now until the first residents move in? When does the development truly pick up steam?

High housing prices lead to housing pod innovation (?) in California

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With the high prices of housing in California these days, one company is offering 3.5 by 4 foot pods:

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With locations in Palo Alto, San Francisco and Bakersfield, Brownstone Shared Housing has converted two homes and an office space into dwellings for dozens of people, with rents ranging from $500 to $900 per month.

The basic pods are a very cozy 3.5 feet wide and 4 feet tall, just big enough to fit a twin mattress. They feature amenities such as charging stations, LED lights and individual climate control systems.

Residents share bathrooms and utilize storage lockers for their belongings, most of which won’t fit into the pods.

And even though $500 to $900 may sound like a lot for such limited space, the rates are far cheaper than most alternatives on the traditional rental market.

In Bakersfield, the median studio apartment rents for $995, according to Zillow. In San Francisco, the figure is $2,200. And in Palo Alto, the median studio rents for $2,300.

Several thoughts in response:

  1. I suspect this kind of housing would appeal to particular audiences and not others.
  2. Is it possible to scale this up? At some point, these might appear to be close to single room occupancy that used to be more common in many cities.
  3. How does zoning work within local municipalities? Would the density levels be acceptable to local officials and residents?
  4. While this might be an innovative way to address the cost of housing, how does this fit with or help spur larger-scale changes that would make affordable housing available to more people?

McMansions and combating climate change

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A letter to the editor in California includes McMansions on a list of items that need attention in order to fight climate change:

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Wildfires are increasing but McMansion developments are underway in brushland.

McMansions have long been connected to environmental concerns. This includes their presence within sprawling suburbs and neighborhoods where driving is necessary and a lot of land is used. It includes the materials required for each home and yard. It includes the use of resources to heat and light such homes.

The concern expressed above is more specific. McMansions are linked to wildfires and brushland. This suggests these homes are being built in places where they should not be built or in places that are vulnerable to wildfires. If McMansions were not in these locations, wildfires would affect fewer people.

I wonder, however, if McMansion is shorthand here for any larger single-family home. Do expanding metropolitan regions in California and other states have climate implications? When people move to what used to be small towns surrounded by more open land or continue to move out into dry suburban fringes, isn’t this more problematic than large McMansions with bad architecture?

The American difficulty in building and funding major infrastructure projects, California high-speed train edition

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The cost and time needed to build a high-speed rail line in California keeps increasing:

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A New York Times review of hundreds of pages of documents, engineering reports, meeting transcripts and interviews with dozens of key political leaders show that the detour through the Mojave Desert was part of a string of decisions that, in hindsight, have seriously impeded the state’s ability to deliver on its promise to create a new way of transporting people in an era of climate change…

When California voters first approved a bond issue for the project in 2008, the rail line was to be completed by 2020, and its cost seemed astronomical at the time — $33 billion — but it was still considered worthwhile as an alternative to the state’s endless web of freeways and the carbon emissions generated.

Fourteen years later, construction is underway on part of a 171-mile “starter” line connecting a few cities in the middle of California, which has been promised for 2030.

Meanwhile, costs have continued to escalate. When the California High-Speed Rail Authority issued its new 2022 draft business plan in February, it estimated an ultimate cost as high as $105 billion. Less than three months later, the “final plan” raised the estimate to $113 billion.

This is not the first time this has happened in the United States. Many major projects, ranging from highway construction to tunnels to bridges, involve expanding timelines and budgets. Even though people may not care as much about these changes once the project is done and things work, the extra time and money comes from somewhere and can affect a lot of people.

There must be some major projects that are completed on time and on budget. Are these properly celebrated?

The water needed to keep the grass green and trees alive at California mansions

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Due to water shortages and water restrictions in California, we now know how much water some celebrities are using for their homes and grounds:

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Now, the celebrities are among the 20,000 residents in the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District – that holds jurisdiction in the cities of Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, and Westlake Village – forced to abide by water restrictions with the installation of restrictive devices that will reduce the amount of water used during showers and for sprinklers.

Amid the relentless drought, the water district moved to ‘Stage 3’ restrictions on June 1 to reduce water consumption by at least 50 percent, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Kim Kardashian is one of the A-list celebrities that has received notice to limit the water usage at her Hidden Hills home and her fixer-upper property she purchased next store – after she exceeded water use by about 232,000 gallons in June…

Rocky Balboa actor Stallone and his model wife, Jennifer Flavin, reportedly went over their water budget at their Hidden Hills home by about 533 percent, or 230,000 gallons, in June. The couple used 195,000 gallons of excess water in May…

Meanwhile, NBA star Wade also received a notice that he exceeded his water limit by 90,000 gallons or 1,400 percent in June. While Wade’s water usage is an improvement since May, it’s still more than most users.

While more than just celebrities have received these notices, the water figures here are staggering. To keep a large house and property going, they have exceeded their allotted use by a lot of water. If this does not contribute to the idea that a lush green lawn and landscape is a status symbol, I do not know what does.

On the flip side, imagine a major celebrity eschewing the green lawn and garden-filled property for a property with a lot fewer water needs. Could images of a celebrity yard of drought resistant and native plants help turn the tide against this kind of water usage? Or, a major social media influencer? Overcoming decades of the association between homeownership and status with a green lawn is going to be hard to overcome.

(Consider this a companion post to the one yesterday about California property owners getting money to tear out their grass lawns.)

Paying California property owners to tear up their grass lawns

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A good number of property owners in California can receive money to remove grass:

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The largest district in the state, the Metropolitan Water District serving 19 million people in Southern California, is paying $2 per square foot of grass pulled out. Water district customer cities and agencies can add more…

The Metropolitan Water District told CNN the number of requests for grass removal rebates jumped four times in July, to 1,172 applications…

The horrific drought led Larry Romanoff to combat climate change by ripping out his grass and replacing it with cactuses and decorative stones. Romanoff will collect $10,500, a whopping $6 per square foot of lawn removed from his desert home…

The Coachella Valley Water District and its customer, the city of Rancho Mirage, are each paying Romanoff $3 per square foot of lawn torn out…

The Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center estimated for CNN nearly 50% of the 409 water agencies in California are offering some sort of turf removal rebate, both residential and commercial.

Paying property owners now will presumably pay off in the long run as it reduces water use.

Given the water shortages facing California and other Western states, how much money will be allocated to such programs and how many homeowners will go for this? Getting rid of the grass lawn may lead to fewer maintenance needs. But, the grass lawn is such a key part of both the image and the mystique of the single-family home. It might be harder for many to envision a property of rocks and cacti or more native and drought-resistance plants.

Evaluating population loss figures for California and its cities

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Since growth is good in the United States, news that California populations are decreasing is a newsworthy item. But, how bad are the numbers? Let’s start with the absolute numbers:

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Citing changes in work-life balance, opportunities for remote work and more people deciding to quit their jobs, the report found that droves of Californians are leaving for states like Texas, Virginia, Washington and Florida. California lost more than 352,000 residents between April 2020 and January 2022, according to California Department of Finance statistics.

San Francisco and Los Angeles rank first and second in the country, respectively, for outbound moves as the cost of living and housing prices continue to balloon and homeowners flee to less expensive cities, according to a report from Redfin released this month.

Angelenos, in particular, are flocking to places like Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, San Antonio and Dallas. The number of Los Angeles residents leaving the city jumped from around 33,000 in the second quarter of 2021 to nearly 41,000 in the same span of 2022, according to the report.

The American Community Survey estimates California’s population at 39,237,836 at July 1, 2021. If the state lost 352,000 residents in nearly two years, that is less than a 1% population loss. Not much.

If Los Angeles lost roughly 120,000 to 160,000 residents in a year out of a population of 3,849,297 (ACS estimates) that is a 3.1-4.2% population loss. A bit more.

Perhaps the real question is how the population growth in California compares to other places. Here are the numbers:

While California experienced a major population boom in the late 20th century — reaching 37 million people by 2000 — it’s been losing residents since, with new growth lagging behind the rest of the country, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. The state’s population increased by 5.8% from 2010 to 2020, below the national growth rate of 6.8%, and resulting in the loss of a congressional seat in 2021 for the first time in the state’s history.

No population loss for the state over a decade. In fact, 5.8% growth, 1% less growth than the country as whole. Not much. The more interesting comparison might be to the state’s own population growth rate, which prior to 2020 was over 10% for every decade since it joined the United States.

In sum: the pandemic might provided several unique years for population in particular places and the state is still growing overall even as it lags slightly behind the whole country and lags more compared to its historical percentage growth. So the real problems here are (1) that there might be any population loss at all in populated parts of California and (2) the state is not experiencing a population boom like it did for much of its history. Are these truly huge causes for concern?

NIMBY vs. acronym opponents

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I have heard of YIMBYs but this profile of a vigorous NIMBY resident of California suggested multiple options:

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To distinguish themselves from NIMBYs, the current generation of housing activists has adopted new “back yard” variants (YIMBY, “Yes in my backyard”; PHIMBY, “Public housing in my backyard”; YIGBY, “Yes in God’s backyard”) to declare how they are for things (everything, subsidized housing, building on church parking lots) that a NIMBY presumably is not. Politicians have piled on: In California, homeowners who are used to being catered to with a host of regulatory and tax policies recently woke up to discover that their governor, Gavin Newsom, told The San Francisco Chronicle, “NIMBYism is destroying the state.”

YIMBY has the advantage of being a clear and obvious alternative to No opinions on development and housing. PHIMBY looks better spelled out but could confuse hearers about whether it is FIMBY. YIGBY sounds like a religious or spiritual version of YIGBY.

A catchy and clear acronym could help make the anti-NIMBY case but it will not be enough on its own to combat the common NIMBYism present in the United States.Even with the concerns expressed about NIMBYs, they likely have the decided advantage in numbers and sentiments across American communities. Many residents want to protect their properties, views, neighborhoods, and investments from a variety of perceived threaters. It will be on actors who have the opposite point of view than NIMBYs to push sentiment and regulation in other directions. This is not an easy task, and this is true even in a state like California that needs a lot of affordable housing.

Estimate of over 1 million Americans displaced by highway construction

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As the United States constructed highways starting in the twentieth century, how many residents were displaced? Here are some numbers:

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The Times found that more than 200,000 people nationwide have lost their homes because of federal road projects during that time, and that some of the country’s largest recent highway expansions, including in California, have forced out residents in Black and Latino neighborhoods at disproportionately high rates. And that’s in addition to the more than 1 million people pushed out during the initial period of freeway building in the mid-20th century via routes that often targeted Black communities for demolition.

That is a lot of people moved just for highways. In addition to affecting particular groups at higher rates, highways broke through established neighborhoods with existing ways of life.

But, the era of highway construction through certain neighborhoods started facing more resistance decades ago. Jane Jacobs was involved in a movement against a highway that would have cut through the middle of Manhattan. Neighborhoods throughout the United States successfully fought against highways. And some of the highways that once plowed through neighborhoods were changed or removed.

This does not mean highways are on the way out. However, it does mean that constructing a new highway or widening a highway in densely settled locations is not a foregone conclusion.

The scale of agriculture in California

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A story about recharging aquifers in California to help beat droughts and high water usage includes this summary of how much food California produces:

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The stakes are high: California grows more than a third of the vegetables and two-thirds of the fruits and nuts eaten in the United States, dominating production of artichokes, avocados, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, celery, dates, grapes, garlic, olives, plums, peaches, walnuts, pistachios, lemons, sweet rice, and lettuce. The Central Valley is America’s agricultural heartland, crucially important to the state’s economy and the groceries of the nation. More wine grapes are grown there than in California’s wine country, more almonds than anywhere else on earth. There are more than a quarter of a million acres devoted to tomatoes, which when plucked, weighed, canned, and shipped add up to around a third of all the processed tomato stuff eaten worldwide. And that’s not to mention all the region’s livestock—chickens, pigs, cows.

When I go to the grocery store, I am not thinking about what goes into all of the food there and instead just enjoy the many options I have within and across stores. When I have a little more time to consider the process, two thoughts come to mind:

  1. The amazing ability for humans to produce this amount of food from this amount of land. I know California is a big state and a lot of people live there and it is still astounding how much food is produced.
  2. The complexity to pull this all off plus the burden on the natural systems that make this all possible. If one piece gets out of whack or the climate changes or human patterns change, the whole system needs to adjust.

It will take significant work to keep the system going and the food growing. While many dystopian works hint at the trouble that would come when normal food systems are disrupted, there would be serious problems if California cannot produce food in the way it does now.