Development in Time (Working Paper)

Planning the Future of California's Housing

Author(s): Myers, Dowell and Alicia Kitsuse
Publication Date: October 1999

26 pages; Inventory ID WP99DM2; English


Development in Time	180 KB

Abstract

The question of future development can benefit from a fresh examination accorded by an alternative viewpoint, one that employs temporal dynamics and housing needs. The time dimension of urban development has been unfairly neglected. The development debate has primarily been cast in terms of spatial patterns—how much density, how dispersed, or how large an ecological footprint—or as a matter of the political values behind opposing outlooks. Yet key issues attending the future of development in California can be better understood in light of an explicit temporal analysis of development over time.

Housing needs have also been of secondary concern in the policy debate over compact cities and sprawl, even though housing constitutes the majority of urbanized land. Given the close connection between projections for future population growth and plans for housing development, the absence of a housing perspective is unfortunate. Widespread consensus foresees continued population growth in California, amounting to 15 million added residents between 1990 and 2020. This oncoming population growth is most intimately linked to future development through the housing units people will demand and occupy. But development of sufficient housing stock requires time for everything from project approvals to the accumulation of annual construction that builds the total stock. Shortfalls in meeting housing needs in a timely way will surely lead to numerous adjustments and disruptions likely to adversely affect life in California for all residents.