Latest news with #JoelKotkin
Ottawa Citizen
14-05-2025
- Business
- Ottawa Citizen
Chapman University Releases International Housing Affordability Report Revealing None of the 95 Major Markets Affordable
Article content Article content ORANGE, Calif., May 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — For the first time in the report's 21-year history, none of the 95 major housing markets analyzed across eight nations qualifies as 'affordable.' This alarming statistic headlines the newly released 2025 edition of Demographia International Housing Affordability, authored by Wendell Cox and published by Chapman University's Center for Demographics and Policy in partnership with The Frontier Centre for Public Policy. Article content Article content The annual report provides housing affordability ratings for the third quarter of 2024 in Australia, Canada, China (Hong Kong), Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States, offering a comprehensive and timely analysis of global housing market conditions. Article content Joel Kotkin, director of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University, commented, 'Middle-income homeownership is increasingly out of reach in major urban centers. The consequences for generational equity, upward mobility, and regional economies are profound. Unless bold reforms are made, especially around land use and urban planning, we risk further deepening inequality and economic stagnation. That's why we're proud to continue this vital partnership with Canada's Frontier Centre for Public Policy.' Article content The rankings in the report are based on a measure called the median multiple, which compares the median house prices in a market to the median household income. In other words, it answers the question, How many years of income would it take for a typical household to buy a typical home? For example, if the median home costs $300,000 and the pre-tax median household income is $75,000, the median multiple is 4.0. Markets are then rated on a scale ranging from 'affordable' (3.0 or less) to 'impossibly unaffordable' (9.0 or more). The higher the number, the harder it is for the middle-income households to afford homeownership. Article content Article content Top 10 Most Affordable Markets (All rated 'Moderately Unaffordable') Article content 1. Pittsburgh, PA (USA) – 3.2 2. Cleveland, OH (USA) – 3.3 3. St. Louis, MO-IL (USA) – 3.5 4. Rochester, NY (USA) – 3.6 5. Edmonton, AB (Canada) – 3.7 Middlesbrough & Durham (UK) – 3.7 Oklahoma City, OK (USA) – 3.7 Omaha, NE-IA (USA) – 3.7 9. Sheffield (UK) – 3.8 10. Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN (USA) – 3.9 Article content Top 10 Least Affordable Markets (All rated 'Impossibly Unaffordable') Article content 1. Hong Kong (China) – 14.4 2. Sydney (Australia) – 13.8 3. San Jose, CA (USA) – 12.1 4. Vancouver, BC (Canada) – 11.8 5. Los Angeles, CA (USA) – 11.2 6. Adelaide (Australia) – 10.9 7. Honolulu, HI (USA) – 10.8 8. San Francisco, CA (USA) – 10.0 9. Melbourne (Australia) – 9.7 10. San Diego, CA (USA) – 9.5
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Letters to the Editor: The answer to clean energy problems 'is better policy, not more pollution'
To the editor: Contributing writer Joel Kotkin argues that California is harming itself by pushing renewable energy while leaving oil and gas in the ground ('The high cost of California's green energy policies,' May 7). But that's like saying a smoker is harming himself by quitting too early. The real damage comes from continuing to burn fossil fuels, which are driving wildfires, heat waves and drought across the state. According to the most recent annual study by Clean Jobs California, clean energy already employs about 545,000 Californians — far more than the fossil fuel sector — and those jobs are growing faster. Yes, clean energy must be made more equitable, but the answer is better policy, not more pollution. Let's not forget that low-income families are affected more by pollution and climate change. Kotkin also claims California's efforts don't have much impact but ignores the fact that we're not alone. The EU, Canada, Japan, South Korea and dozens of U.S. states have ambitious renewable energy and climate targets. The global transition is already underway. California's leadership helps drive that momentum, lower global prices and shape policy worldwide. Brent Jacobson, Chino Hills .. To the editor: Kotkin conveniently does not mention just how rapidly the price of solar panels and the battery storage of electricity have been coming down over the past few years. It is stunning. And if the recent past is any guide, the price collapse is not about to stop. As environmentalist Bill McKibben once reminded us, 'We live on a planet where the cheapest way to produce power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun." The result is a "water-into-wine miracle." Coal, oil and natural gas are all history. Peter L. Coye, Pomona .. To the editor: Nowhere in Kotkin's article does he mention the cost of not doing anything. The price tag for not eliminating fossil fuels and building a renewable economy is bigger: more devastating fires, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, systemic ecological collapse, warming oceans — basically, an unlivable planet. J.J. Flowers, Dana Point This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Letters to the Editor: The answer to clean energy problems ‘is better policy, not more pollution'
To the editor: Contributing writer Joel Kotkin argues that California is harming itself by pushing renewable energy while leaving oil and gas in the ground ('The high cost of California's green energy policies,' May 7). But that's like saying a smoker is harming himself by quitting too early. The real damage comes from continuing to burn fossil fuels, which are driving wildfires, heat waves and drought across the state. According to the most recent annual study by Clean Jobs California, clean energy already employs about 545,000 Californians — far more than the fossil fuel sector — and those jobs are growing faster. Yes, clean energy must be made more equitable, but the answer is better policy, not more pollution. Let's not forget that low-income families are affected more by pollution and climate change. Kotkin also claims California's efforts don't have much impact but ignores the fact that we're not alone. The EU, Canada, Japan, South Korea and dozens of U.S. states have ambitious renewable energy and climate targets. The global transition is already underway. California's leadership helps drive that momentum, lower global prices and shape policy worldwide. Brent Jacobson, Chino Hills .. To the editor: Kotkin conveniently does not mention just how rapidly the price of solar panels and the battery storage of electricity have been coming down over the past few years. It is stunning. And if the recent past is any guide, the price collapse is not about to stop. As environmentalist Bill McKibben once reminded us, 'We live on a planet where the cheapest way to produce power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun.' The result is a 'water-into-wine miracle.' Coal, oil and natural gas are all history. Peter L. Coye, Pomona .. To the editor: Nowhere in Kotkin's article does he mention the cost of not doing anything. The price tag for not eliminating fossil fuels and building a renewable economy is bigger: more devastating fires, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, systemic ecological collapse, warming oceans — basically, an unlivable planet. J.J. Flowers, Dana Point
Epoch Times
08-05-2025
- Business
- Epoch Times
Rent or Buy a Home? Californians Increasingly Have No Choice
California is home to some of the widest gaps between mortgage payments and rental costs in the nation, meaning it is increasingly harder to buy a home compared to renting one, according to analysts. The California Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) 'Historically, people would rent, save money, and then buy a house. But, if the rents are high and the prices of houses are even higher, then there's really no hope,' Joel Kotkin, a fellow in urban studies at Chapman University, told The Epoch Times. 'Buying is becoming more and more difficult, unless you have inherited wealth, or if you have money from overseas.' A Bankrate compared average monthly rent to average monthly mortgage payments across the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, and revealed that cities in California are at the top of the list when it comes to expensive home ownership, especially when compared to rents. San Francisco has a buy-rent gap of 190.7 percent, making it home to the largest gap nationwide. The typical monthly mortgage payment in San Francisco was around $8,882, up 4.7 percent year-over-year, while the typical rent is $3,055, down 1.7 percent year-over-year. Related Stories 4/23/2025 4/23/2025 San Jose comes in a close second on the list, where homeowners fork over mortgage payments that are 185.6 percent higher than rent. The typical mortgage payment is $9,438, up 10.5 percent year-over-year, with rent coming in around $3,305, down 1.3 percent year-over-year. Los Angeles and San Diego have seen a similar trend. Mortgage payments in Southern California's largest metro areas are 88.5 percent and 79.9 percent higher than rent, respectively, landing them sixth and ninth compared to other U.S. metros included in the study. Bankrate's study attributes high cost gaps between renting and owning a home to skyrocketing home prices because of low housing supply, as well as high mortgage rates, which ' If you're in the coastal markets, you have to consider this home as a very long-run solution,' Skylar Olsen, Zillow's chief housing economist, said in a statement. 'In California, people famously leave their homes to their children. There are very long tenures in these really expensive markets for that reason.' California Housing Costs California homes are around twice as expensive as the typical American home, reported the California LAO, citing Zillow data. A mid-tier home in California costs around $789,000 in 2025, compared to the U.S. average of $361,000. According to the California Association of Realtors (CAR), the median California home price in March 2025 was In a July 2024 report from Los Angeles's median home price is just over Mid-tier home monthly payments reached nearly $5,900 a month in March 2024, making for an 82 percent growth in prices since January 2020, reported the California LAO. Bottom-tier home payments reached more than $3,500 per month, representing an 87 percent increase since January 2020. CAR reports that a mere 17 percent of households could Homeownership rates have fallen in California, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, where the current home ownership rate is Meanwhile, according to the LAO, the monthly The California Housing Partnership The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) Lack of Homeownership Amid the rising prices, 70 percent of Californians believe children today will fare worse than their parents financially, according to a 2024 PPIC statewide The survey found 29 percent of Californians skipped meals or ate less food in order to save money within the prior year, while 17 percent used CalFresh (food stamp) benefits. Moreover, 20 percent put medical care on hold as a result of financial constraints. According to Mark Schniepp, director of The Economic Forecast, the main issue is housing. 'But there's not much we can do about it outside of building more of it,' Schniepp told The Epoch Times in an email. 'However we are unlikely to be able to build enough, given current regulations in place and current zoning.' 'The Coastal Act, CEQA, land costs and many local regulations prevent developing housing,' he added. Kotkin agreed state policies have contributed to a lack of affordable housing, which makes it difficult to build in places that would otherwise be cheaper. 'What essentially is approved is increasingly high density and expensive in the inner city,' Kotkin said. The bottom line, he said, is that home ownership is an important part of preparing for retirement. If you own a house, then you can stay there once you retire, because you probably have paid it off. 'The house is an asset,' he said. '[Owners] can borrow against it, they can sell, and then they can have a comfortable retirement.' However, if an increasing number of people are forced to rent, 'people will generally look to the state, or some other institution, to take care of them, because they have nothing of their own,' Kotkin said. 'They're going to rent for life, which means that when they retire, they're not going to have any assets. They're going to be dependent on state transfer payments.' He sees such dependency as incompatible with democracy. 'Democracy is built on the fact that there's some degree of independence on the part of a large part of the population,' he said. 'If you own a house, you have a certain degree of autonomy that maybe you can think in a different way than if you are dependent on the fact that your landlord may decide to increase the rent 50 percent.'
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Letters to the Editor: Denser cities or more sprawl? Readers debate California's housing crisis
To the editor: Joel Kotkin's piece is a welcome break from the orthodoxy, consistently promoted in your opinion pages, that relieving housing shortages demands the densification of single-family neighborhoods. ("California's housing problems require a better solution than densify, densify, densify," Opinion, Feb. 18) Kotkin cites research showing that forced densification does little to relieve housing inflation. More importantly, he highlights an inconvenient truth. In a recent Public Policy Institute of California survey, 70% of the state's adults preferred single-family residences. In a separate poll, a large majority of Californians opposed state legislation banning single-family zoning. "If we build it, they will come" is an unreliable mode of social engineering. Just look at L.A.'s largely empty bike lanes. Shelley Wagers, Los Angeles .. To the editor: Kotkin bravely proposes an unorthodox solution to the housing crisis — discouraging multi-family development where people want to live, and instead encouraging Californians in search of affordable housing to sprawl out further into the Central Valley and Inland Empire. If this sounds exactly like our housing status quo, that's because it is. Kotkin's analysis provides nothing but a misunderstanding of market forces in service of the NIMBY policies that brought us into this mess. I agree that some environmental rules stand in the way of new housing and need reform. However, most of the land for housing in Southern California is already zoned for single-family residences, which Kotkin prefers. So why are Californians upset if surveys show they actually want single-family homes? Because they can't afford one! Building denser housing in cities isn't some government distortion of the free market. It's allowing the housing market to expand supply where demand is high. People want to live in these areas — that's why they're expensive. I support streamlining regulations to allow the construction of more single-family homes in areas where it is currently difficult to do so. But I also strongly object to age-old NIMBY policies that only serve to preserve our status quo. Edward Williams, Los Angeles .. To the editor: Elected officials need to heed the wisdom of scholars such as Kotkin and make the housing crisis a top-tier issue. The vote last December by the Los Angeles City Council to preserve 72% of L.A.'s residential land for single-family zoning will severely hinder new housing construction. This will reinforce decades-long inequalities in L.A.'s housing market. Unless people who were fortunate to buy their homes during much more affordable cycles recognize the urgency of this crisis, future generations will never be able to achieve homeownership on job income alone. This affects particularly the "missing middle" class of teachers, police officers, nurses and others who make too much to qualify for assistance yet too little to buy a home in the communities they serve. Lisa Ansell, Beverly Hills .. To the editor: Kotkin's proposed solutions to the state's housing crisis are not viable solutions. He touts the benefits of peripheral development as a way to entice new homebuyers. The last time I checked, home prices are high everywhere in L.A. County. Where is this magical, cheap land located? Second, he says that remote work options make peripheral development more practicable. Outside the tech sector, remote work isn't a viable option for most professions. Ironically, the more tech jobs an area has, the more home prices go up. Say what you like about infill development, but many communities are not in favor of sprawling subdivisions. Infill development conserves land, reduces car dependence and should remain part of the solution to the housing shortage. Kristen Kessler, Ventura This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
