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PLANNING WATCH - Even though the press barely covers it, Los Angeles is quickly losing population. This should free up dwelling units, especially apartments, despite the fallacious claim that homelessness in LA is caused by a housing shortage. If the city relaxes its zoning laws – the claim goes -- developers will respond by building new affordable units. Voila, the free market will solve homeless and overcrowding if cities would just increase permitted density.
What a great theory. Too bad reality doesn’t cooperate for a simple reason. The growing numbers of people sleeping on sidewalks and in cars and store fronts, simply do not have enough money to rent new or vacant apartments. Furthermore, the plight and numbers of these homeless people will get worse, not better, over time, no matter how much rezoning the Los Angeles City Council adopts at the behest of free-market advocates posing as progressives.
The reasons why their approach continues to fail is not, however, hard to figure out. Most people are getting poorer, and an increasing number of them cannot afford to rent available apartments. As for houses, they too are far beyond their ability to pay.
Furthermore, there is nothing new about these developments. According to Jeff Singer, professor of Social Work at the University of Maryland, homelessness has been a consistent feature of life in the United States since the Civil War. We only need to remember that Charlie Chaplin’s famous character, The Little Tramp, dealt with homelessnes in the era before WW1, more than a century ago and 50 years after the end of the Civil War.
Where does that leave us? According to the advocates of more permissive zoning codes to alleviate homeless, it is strictly a function of numbers and cost. If we allow real estate developers to build more housing on existing land in Los Angeles and other cities, homelessness will disappear because it increases the number of low-priced apartments for homeless people to rent or houses to buy.
Yet, homelessness continues to rise in Los Angeles despite these repeated claims, and it is not hard to figure out why.
- Rising economic inequality is not just entrenched, but is getting worse because of the failed US war on Iran. As a result, the real income for most people, especially potential renters, is declining.
- Apartment rental prices are rising, and there is a lack of low-priced apartments.
- Population decline in Los Angeles is well documented.
If we look at overall impact of these trends on most people in the United States, including Los Angeles, it reveals declining real incomes for years to come. Upzoning existing neighborhoods might selectively help a few investors, but it won’t benefit the vast majority of the public. Their standard of living will continue to decline, despite selectively upzoning potential residential properties.
What is good for the goose, in not necessarily good for the gander.
(Dick Platkin ([email protected]) is a retired LA city planner. He reports on local planning issues and is a board member of United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles. Previous columns are available at the CityWatchLA archives.)
