Fixing California’s Housing Crisis: An Interview with Nolan Gray

“To understand how land use regulation can help save California from the dystopian future it is currently facing, I spoke with Nolan Gray, an urban planner and outspoken land use policy wonk.”

California might be the best place to live in the world—if you can afford it. And if one does not mind the traffic, the growing issue of homelessness, and the ever-present danger of droughts, wildfires, and earthquakes.

While the list of serious issues facing California is long, there are solutions. A surprising number of the solutions all come back to housing affordability. Traffic can be improved by building more homes near workplaces. Homelessness can be improved by building more shelters and by ensuring that fewer people end up homeless in the first place. And the danger of wildfires can be decreased by keeping urban housing prices low so people do not feel the need to move into rural areas directly threatened with decimation each fire season.

To understand how land use regulation can help save California from the dystopian future it is currently facing, I spoke with Nolan Gray, an urban planner and outspoken land use policy wonk. Gray is currently finishing a Ph.D. in urban planning at University of California, Los Angeles and is an affiliated scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. In addition to his active YIMBY Twitter presence, Gray has written for The Atlantic and the Orange County Register and is currently working on a book on zoning laws called Arbitrary Lines.

This interview, conducted over the telephone, has been lightly edited for length and clarity.