How Democratic Socialism Created California’s Housing Crisis

 

This article is adapted from a presentation delivered at California’s Decline: A Warning to America, held in San Diego, California, on April 25, 2026.

In 2017, Berkeley resident Scout Sheys attended a city council meeting to oppose a proposal for a two-story residential development adjacent to her home. During her remarks, she held up a zucchini as a visual demonstration of her concern.

“I brought this zucchini,” she explained, “because I enjoy gardening, and gardens need sunlight. The environmental impact report says the shadow created by the new building won’t be considered harmful because it falls on my property—but this zucchini only grew because there isn’t currently a large two-story house blocking the sun.”

Supporters of stronger local planning oversight often argue that developments should account for their effects on neighboring residents, while critics see such cases as examples of excessive government involvement in private property decisions. From the latter perspective, modern “democratic socialism” differs from traditional socialism by extending collective decision-making into areas that were once considered private. Rather than the state directly owning property, the community is given significant influence over how private property may be used, with government institutions enforcing those collective decisions.

California offers numerous examples of this approach. In many municipalities, including Berkeley, developers are required to undergo public review processes in which nearby residents can voice concerns about issues such as neighborhood character, traffic, noise, and even the amount of shadow a proposed building may cast on surrounding properties. These hearings give local communities substantial influence over whether projects move forward and under what conditions.

Critics argue that this regulatory framework has contributed to one of the most severe housing shortages in the United States. They contend that lengthy approval processes, zoning restrictions, and frequent public objections have significantly limited new housing construction, driving prices sharply upward. Today, the median home price in Berkeley is approximately $1.5 million, while neighboring San Francisco—often cited as a prominent example of these planning policies—has median home prices exceeding $2 million.

To understand how California arrived at this point, the author argues that it is helpful to examine three influential books published during the 1960s, which helped shape the ideas and policies that would later influence the state's approach to housing, planning, and governance.

The Democratization of Urban Planning

In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), Jane Jacobs criticized the urban renewal policies of the mid-20th century, which relied on federal funding to demolish many low-income neighborhoods in favor of large redevelopment projects. These programs displaced hundreds of thousands of residents, often in the name of economic development or infrastructure improvements. Jacobs argued that such top-down planning ignored the needs of the communities most directly affected and called for greater local participation in decisions about urban development.

One outcome of this philosophy was the emergence of grassroots organizations dedicated to protecting neighborhoods from demolition. In San Francisco, for example, the Western Addition Community Organization (WACO), established in 1967, became part of this broader movement. Using methods such as public demonstrations, sit-ins, picketing, and legal challenges, community activists sought to halt redevelopment projects that threatened existing residential areas.

As Jacobs’s ideas gained influence—particularly in California—they increasingly shaped municipal planning practices. Many cities began involving residents more directly in land-use decisions. In Los Angeles, Planning Director Calvin Hamilton promoted the idea that effective planning should reflect the priorities of local citizens. To support this goal, the city established Citizens’ Advisory Committees (CACs), which worked alongside planning departments to provide public input. Similar advisory bodies were later adopted in numerous other municipalities.

According to the author, however, these committees gradually evolved in ways that differed from their original purpose. Rather than being dominated by residents facing displacement from redevelopment projects, many CACs came to be composed primarily of middle- and upper-income homeowners, retirees, and other individuals with the time and resources to participate regularly in local government. Their priorities often centered on preserving the character of existing neighborhoods, including opposing new highways and large infrastructure projects. One commonly cited example is the proposed Golden Gate Freeway in San Francisco, portions of which were never completed after sustained community opposition during the 1960s.

The author argues that this marked an important shift in urban politics. Community organizations that had initially mobilized to resist demolition and protect vulnerable neighborhoods increasingly turned their attention toward opposing new construction more broadly. Over time, this pattern expanded beyond highways to include housing developments and other forms of urban growth, a trend the author believes continues to influence California’s planning process today.

Politicizing Environmentalism

The author identifies Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962, as another major influence on the policies that eventually contributed to California’s housing challenges. The book is best known for criticizing the widespread use of the pesticide DDT and raising public awareness about the potential environmental consequences of chemical pollution. Although its primary focus was environmental protection rather than housing, the author argues that it played a significant role in transforming environmentalism into a powerful political movement.

The Sierra Club is presented as an example of this transformation. Before the publication of Silent Spring, the organization was largely associated with outdoor recreation, conservation efforts, and environmental stewardship, such as hiking trips and cleanup campaigns. In the years that followed, however, it became increasingly active in public policy, working with neighborhood organizations to oppose highway construction and other large development projects on environmental grounds.

Environmental advocacy also expanded through lobbying at the state level. Organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Planning and Conservation League supported legislation aimed at strengthening environmental protections in California. The author argues that many of these laws—including the 1969 Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act and the California Coastal Zone Conservation Act—have had the unintended consequence of making housing development more difficult by imposing additional environmental review and regulatory requirements.

According to the author, the most influential of these laws was the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), signed by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1970. Similar to the federal National Environmental Policy Act enacted the previous year, CEQA required environmental impact assessments for certain proposed developments. Initially, the law primarily applied to public projects. However, following the Friends of Mammoth court decision, California's Supreme Court ruled that CEQA also applied to private developments requiring discretionary government approval, greatly expanding the law's reach.

The distinction between discretionary and ministerial permits became particularly important. Ministerial, or “by-right,” permits are issued automatically when a project complies with all applicable regulations. Discretionary permits, on the other hand, allow public officials to approve or deny projects based on broader judgment and subjective considerations, even if the proposal satisfies existing zoning rules. While discretionary review is relatively limited in many parts of the United States, the author notes that it is used much more extensively in California. Many cities authorize planners to evaluate projects based on factors such as neighborhood character or architectural compatibility, and San Francisco applies discretionary review to nearly all construction proposals.

The author concludes that, because CEQA provides multiple opportunities for public objections and legal challenges, it has become one of the primary mechanisms through which neighborhood groups can delay, modify, reduce, or prevent new development. Supporters of the law argue that these reviews protect environmental quality and ensure public accountability, while critics contend that the process is frequently used to obstruct much-needed housing construction and contribute to California’s housing shortage.

The Revival of the Malthusian Debate

The author argues that while the democratization of urban planning and the rise of environmental activism significantly influenced housing policy, neither movement was originally focused on limiting residential development. According to this perspective, that changed with the emergence of the no-growth movement, which gained momentum after the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb in 1968.

Ehrlich’s book revived concerns similar to those first expressed by Thomas Malthus in the late eighteenth century—that rapid population growth would eventually outpace available resources, resulting in widespread famine and conflict. The author contends that these predictions ultimately proved inaccurate because they underestimated the role of technological innovation, capital investment, and economic development in increasing productivity and improving living standards. From this viewpoint, advances under market economies have expanded food production and helped reduce global poverty rather than confirming Malthusian forecasts.

Nevertheless, concerns about overpopulation gained considerable influence in California. According to the author, many advocates of the no-growth movement concluded that restricting local population growth—primarily by limiting new housing—was an appropriate response to broader environmental and demographic concerns. Courts generally rejected outright bans on residential construction, so local governments instead relied on indirect methods, such as limiting infrastructure or delaying utility connections, to slow development.

Marin County is presented as an example of how these ideas converged. During the early 1970s, community organizations opposed a proposal to construct a new aqueduct intended to accommodate population growth. Later, a Sierra Club member was elected to the local water district after campaigning on an explicitly anti-growth platform. According to the author, these political decisions contributed to water supply constraints that prevented many landowners from obtaining permission to develop residential property. In this account, control over water infrastructure became an indirect means of limiting private development rather than simply a response to resource management concerns.

NIMBYism and Property Rights

The author argues that three major developments—the expansion of community participation in planning decisions, the growing political influence of environmental organizations, and the rise of the no-growth movement—combined to create significant obstacles to housing construction throughout California.

During the 1970s, these trends contributed to what the author describes as a "permit explosion," with developers facing an increasing number of regulatory approvals before projects could proceed. In the 1980s, many communities adopted additional land-use restrictions through local ballot initiatives and zoning reforms, including stricter parking requirements, larger minimum lot sizes, lower height limits, and other development controls.

By the 1990s, these neighborhood organizations had evolved into what is now commonly known as the Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) movement. According to the author, these groups increasingly relied on environmental litigation, public hearings, and community activism to oppose developments they believed would negatively affect their neighborhoods. The well-known "zucchini" incident in Berkeley is presented as an illustration of this type of local opposition.

The author concludes that California's regulatory system has shifted substantial authority over private property from individual landowners to community review processes and government oversight. From this perspective, the extensive role of public participation in determining how private land may be used amounts to a form of "democratic socialism," because collective decision-making has increasingly shaped the exercise of private property rights. This conclusion reflects the author's interpretation of California's housing policies and serves as the central argument of the article.