HOUSING INAFFORDABILITY ALONG CALIFORNIA’S GOLD COAST: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PEOPLE’S SANTA MONICA ON THE WAY TO SILICON BEACH?

ABSTRACT

This conference paper, shortened and updated from Peters (2016), chronicles a policies. My findings connect to larger storylines of neoliberal urbanization, gentrification, the rise of consumptive spaces and of urban tourism in America, as well as many other discourses about contested urban spaces. In the oceanside community of Santa Monica, located in the heart of the Los Angeles megaregion, new tech industry workers and temporary visitors increasingly clash with long- become the most unaffordable rental market in the entire U.S. – and rents in Santa Monica are the highest within that market. A recent dramatic rise of so income residents while its homeless population already hit an all time high. The veloper- t a -density, slow growth, progressive urban development policies that were focused on the supply of public benefits and included important pro-renter policies. So Santa Monica, a city with a lively and internationally renowned history of political activism, is now increasingly overwhelmed with a housing affordability crisis of epic proportions. Resident groups are divided between renters and homeowners and between business owners and employees. Overall, a loud and strong political force has economic growth that shuns massive development projects and resists city plans for additional office development even when it comes packaged as part of mixed-use projects that also propose residential and hotel units.

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