Kotkin Housing/Homelessness Q2
There are three main opportunities. One is to take advantage of the coming tsunami of redundant retail space that can be converted into all kinds of housing, from patio homes to townhouses and larger multi-family. This can be done without much new infrastructure and destroying existing middle income neighborhoods. The second is to build on a surprisingly large number of undeveloped lots, even in LA city. The third, and most important, would be to make it easier to open up development, and land markets, on the periphery, where we have traditionally built family friendly homes. This would help reduce the high land costs that hurt development in both cities and suburbs. Finally, we need to look at changing tax laws so that localities have incentive to build housing rather than chase retail dollars.
