California ends single-family zoning

THE GOLDEN mean in California’s one-party politics can be caricatured, only a little unfairly, as the art of sounding progressive while acting conservative. Take housing. Homeowners may recognise that housing affordability and homelessness are acute social problems. But the obvious remedy—more construction—seems unappealing, because it might hurt property values and spoil neighbourhoods. Thus the progressive-conservative position is to insist on building housing at below-market rates, which sounds compassionate but, in practice, means that little new housing actually gets built. This is why it is so encouraging that two days after Gavin Newsom handily defeated a Republican attempt to boot him from office, the governor signed two contentious measures, SB9 and SB10, aimed at increasing housing supply.