Special Report: Housing

TheRose Institute of State and Local Government is pleased to welcome you to Claremont McKenna College for the 2023 Housing Symposium with Governor Gray Davis. Governor Davis will lead a distinguished panel of public officials to discuss the state’s growing role in local housing policy.

This special edition of the Inland Empire Outlook showcases student research on a variety of housing topics. We begin with an analysis of California’s chronic housing underproduction. The California Department of Housing and Community Development estimates that the state need to build 180,000 new units a year. California has averaged less than half that over the past decade, but 2021 shows a marked improvement.

Our second article (reprinted from Spring 2022) looks at the use of inclusionary housing ordinances (IHOs) by cities in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County, and Riverside

County. An IHO is a city or county requirement for a certain percentage of new housing developments to be made affordable. Do Inland Empire cities use IHOs on a similar scale as the coastal counties and are IHOs an effective tool to accomplish more affordable housing?

Our final article (reprinted from Spring 2022) examines geographic variance in regulatory attitudes toward housing development. Laws that make residential construction more difficult have significant, observable effects on housing supply and prices. This article briefly surveys research on that topic and presents a finding that a higher proportion of white-collar workers in a city is associated with attitudes more favorable to regulation limiting housing.

We hope you find this edition of the Inland Empire Outlook a useful guide. Please visit our website, www.RoseInstitute.org, for information on many other Rose Institute research projects.