Last week, the California legislature passed a Senate Bill 9, which bans single-family zoning. The YIMBYs — really YISEBYs (yes in someone else’s backyard) — claim this is a victory for more affordable housing, but it isn’t. In fact, it is a victory for densification, and density has never made housing more affordable.
Not only are higher densities not more affordable, data from 429 urban areas in the 2019 American Community Survey indicate that higher densities are incompatible with housing affordability; specifically that densities above 4,000 people per square mile almost inevitably drive median housing costs to more than four times median family incomes.
Like Oregon’s anti-single-family zoning law, California’s law effectively allows up to four homes on every lot that now has one. And, like Oregon’s law, experts agree that it will be many years before SB9 has any effect on housing prices, if it ever does. Continue reading
