The New York Times writes a new study has found the extremes of hot and dry weather have increased substantially in the American West. What can we do? 

We can do a lot! We are California, and when California leads the world soon follows!

It's already happening with our zero-emission cars and recently approved zero-emission trucks program. But we have to move faster and make the change bigger.

Join us next Thursday to talk with California's climate and clean air leaders about a possible statewide ballot measure in November 2022 to significantly reduce greenhouse gases and short-lived climate pollutants (including black carbon, methane, ozone andhydrofluorocarbons or HFCs), and finish cleaning our air.

Below is a fascinating account of the Gateway Cities communities in southeast LA County that dramatically illustrates how the shortage of affordable housing in LA County and across the state has meant that many families who live here cannot afford the cost of an apartment or single-family home—causing some families to share homes instead. 

Much of the unmet housing demand reflects overcrowding like this, not just in the Gateway Cities but in other communities as well, many of which have primarily single-family housing stock. We believe there is an alternative way to provide significant affordable housing for renters on what we call "Boulevards of Equity and Opportunity," and that 36-mile-long Atlantic Boulevard, which traverses nine of the Gateway Cities, could provide an example of what can be done.

You may remember that Move LA’s Boulevards of Equity and Opportunity Zoomposium in July was largely about the shortage of housing—especially affordable housing—in LA County and the City of LA, which prompted us to investigate the possibility of building housing along the county’s 2,100 miles of commercial boulevards.

We are particularly interested in the construction of housing in mixed-use, mixed-income development, along boulevards that are well-served by transit—as most commercial boulevards are—and can be improved with street trees and urban greening, made safe for walking and biking, and provide jobs and neighborhood services without displacement of current residents and businesses.

aid earlier, building infrastructure and roads has often done great harm to communities—we must acknowledge the history of zoning as it relates to systemic racism and injustice.

California’s latest Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA)—the state-required estimate of the need for housing for people of all incomes over an 8-year period—projects that Southern California will need to provide more than 1.3 million new housing units, almost 60% of them affordable to moderate and low-income households. 

The RHNA claims that LA County alone will need a minimum of 800,000 new units to meet the housing need through 2029—about 470,000 of which must be affordable to moderate and low-income families—and that the City of Los Angeles will need about 500,000 new units, more than half of which need to be affordable.

One of the highlights of our Zoomposium on Boulevards of Equity and Opportunity last month was a presentation by Peter Calthorpe, renown architect, urban planner, a founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism, and co-creator—with Joe DiStefano—of UrbanFootprint, a web-based urban planning and mapping platform.

Peter and Joe have used this tool to evaluate the housing potential along El Camino Real, a 45-mile mostly commercial roadway through the heart of Silicon Valley, in an effort to address California’s housing crisis. Their investigation, which was expanded to cover the five-county inner Bay Area, helps inform the increasing interest in using stretches of commercial boulevards that aren’t thriving—especially now given the interest in online shopping and concerns about the coronavirus—to provide mixed-income multifamily housing near jobs in walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented neighborhoods in California.

Metro CEO Phil Washington made it clear at our Zoomposium on Boulevards of Equity and Opportunity that because voter-approved Measures R (2008) and M (2016) made Metro probably the most well-funded transit agency in the U.S., Metro is not just about mobility anymore, and not simply a big transit construction program. The agency is, in Washington’s words, “about investing in communities, delivering jobs, training programs, small business assistance programs—as well as new transit lines.” You can listen to the July 16 Zoomposium here (Phil's conversation with Move LA Executive Director Denny Zane begins about 7 minutes in.)

Move LA’s policy brief on affordable housing (click here or below) proposes a program the state Legislature and local government agencies could approve to help address California’s affordable housing crisis while also helping to reduce traffic congestion, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and both air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

We believe that the crux of the state’s housing crisis is the specific and severe shortage of below-market-rate housing affordable to low- and moderate-income renter households. We also believe that expanded market-rate development, while perhaps important for other reasons, will not contribute in a significant way to solving this crisis of affordability.

Our first foray into virtual programming was a huge success with our "Zoomposium" on Boulevards of Equity and Opportunity. With 600+ unique viewers and 13 panelists that included CEO, founders, executive directors, and industry leaders, we had a robust conversation on a strategy to address the housing crisis without displacement, gentrification, and neighborhood disruption.