Planning Problem 1: Homelessness in Los Angeles
Homelessness in Los Angeles is at an all time high across many counties. In Alameda county the percentage of homeless people jumped to nearly 43% and in orange county, considered one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, jumped to near the same at 42% homeless in just the past two years. LA counties total homeless population is around 59000 people. This is about the same amount of people that inhabit all of Kissimmee, Florida. This alone shows the urgency and severity of the homeless issue in Los Angeles. The city and county officials are now struggling to provide and build housing for nearly 60,000 people. This is one of the biggest problems– how do we tackle this problem with effective and efficiency? Many groups such as Everyone In LA and Homeless Initiative are groups attempting to educate and provide ways to help fight this issue.
Looking at the varying planning styles comes different approaches towards the issue of tackling homelessness in LA. The advocate would be someone fighting with the homeless as a group for resources and aid. Groups like this are very popular and already exist in the area. Groups like Everyone in LA and The Action Plan all support homeless people and getting people, mainly in middle class, to take action. They provide ways in which they can get involved or even what they are doing to help, just to educate the public. Public education could help with the issue, even just a little bit, because a lot of people avoid the issue or because it doesn’t involve them or they don’t know they just don’t care. Small steps like this could really make a difference in the quality of the homeless persons life or at least give them hope that someone is in their corner.
The radical would section off part of the city for the homeless or would lower all living costs to help living conditions for homeless and all others in LA. Places like Seattle, Washington have sectioned off land ordinances for peaceful homeless living where no police or public harm is of concern for them. Council Bill 118794 allowed for tents in public parks. Something like this could take place in LA from a radical perspective. The radical could also aspire to lower all living costs in the area. In our next topic we discuss this a little bit, but living in California is very hard. Taxes are high and land values and property values are almost so unaffordable by the average person that most people rent or live in what appears to be lower income areas. So in their eyes lower living costs could really fix the whole problem. However both of these solutions take many aspects of life to change in this city. And changes like this are very hard to vote into practice and agree upon and therefore are very unlikely to ever happen.
References
Ansell, Phil. “The Plan.” Homeless Initiative, 5 Feb. 2019, homeless.lacounty.gov/the-action-plan/.
Cowan, Jill. “Homeless Populations Are Surging in Los Angeles. Here’s Why.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 June 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/us/los-angeles-homeless-population.html.
Everyone In. “The Plan.” Everyone In, United Way of Greater Los Angeles, 2 Jan. 2019, everyoneinla.org/the-plan/.
MyNorthwest Staff. “Timeline: Understanding Seattle’s Homeless Issues.” MyNorthwest.com, 20 May 2019, mynorthwest.com/1030524/timeline-seattle-homeless/.
New York Data Bases. “Population of US Cities.” Democratandchronicle.com, 22 Mar. 2016, rochester.nydatabases.com/database/population-us-cities
Planning Problem 2: Housing Prices in Los Angeles
Housing prices have skyrocketed in the past years due to the supply and demand. Lots of people move to California each year in search of better jobs or new opportunities. The average cost of US housing per family household is $226,800. In Los Angeles the average price for a house is $600,000 almost triple of the average US household cost. For that price in LA you can get a 3-5 bed house with 2-3 baths with about 1,000 sq ft. However, they aren’t usually updated with modern appliances or interior design. Now for that price in Columbus you can get a 3-4 bed with 4-5 baths however, you’ll get anywhere from 2,000-5,000 sq ft. One of the reasons that housing in LA is so expensive is because they haven’t built enough houses for the amount of people that are moving there. The cost of labor and materials are much more expensive in LA due to California’s topography. Therefore, limited land plus high demand equals higher pricing rates on housing.
Looking at the issue from the perspective of an entrepreneur they would look at it as a way to address the concerning issues within the community. They may look at different ways to lower the cost of materials with not necessarily lowering the cost of physical labor. If they can find ways to strategically place neighborhoods that are safe and affordable then more people would move into them. They would have to find a way to work with the demand of housing while also keeping in mind to lower the cost. However, they need to look at it from a consumer standpoint. The average US household income is $63,179. That income isn’t enough to afford a house that costs $600,000. To address the issue they would need to find sites and materials that are more affordable. They will also need a finance specialist and contractor to work together to solve this issue. The con to this plan would be that they might be losing money, which no investor or businessman wants to do.
Another perspective would be to look at it through the style of advocate. This would help for people who are middle or lower middle class to have access to affordable housing in nice areas, and have bigger houses. They would advocate to have more developments built and to lower the cost of housing in those areas. They could also fix up homes that are abandoned or in bad condition. A con to this would be that there could also be a person advocating for the developers and businesses who might not want to invest time and money into pre existing houses that are run down. If they don’t produce the expected outcome then they would be wasting their money when they could have invested it into houses or other projects that they know would’ve made them money. Another con is that with the limited land there could be competition to build housing catered towards the wealthier people because they have developers and businesses willing to spend more money, and the city will always go with the higher bidder.
References
Chiland, Elijah. “LA Home Prices Smash All-Time Record-Again.” Curbed LA, Curbed LA, 28 Aug. 2019, la.curbed.com/2019/8/28/20837299/los-angeles-home-price-record-july-2019.
Khouri, Andrew. “Southern California Home Prices Are Flat in May as Sales Fall.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 26 June 2019, www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-southern-california-home-prices-20190626-story.html.
Levin, Matt. “5 Reasons California’s Housing Costs Are So High.” KQED, 4 May 2018, www.kqed.org/news/11666284/5-reasons-californias-housing-costs-are-so-high.