Feudal Future Podcast — Addressing the Housing Affordability Crisis
Feudal Future hosts Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky discuss the housing affordability crisis with housing experts Joel Farkas, Wendell Cox, and Karla López del Río.
Feudal Future hosts Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky discuss the housing affordability crisis with housing experts Joel Farkas, Wendell Cox, and Karla López del Río.
It takes a kind of malignant genius to destroy California, but the state’s ruling elites are well on their way to assure its decline. If the downward spiral continues, it will stand as a testament to the insane variety of progressive policies that have driven middle and working class people, as well as numerous companies, out of the state.
This new report examines the housing trends that are driving today’s migration of people and jobs, and suggests a urban strategy that better fits the aspirations of most Americans. Below is a summary of the report and a link to download the full report:
For generations Americans have voted with their feet—and their dollars—to achieve what has long been called “the dream,” namely, a home of their own, usually in a low- to mid-density community. This preference has existed for decades, and despite media assertions of a generational shift back to dense, urban living, the statistical evidence shows quite the opposite.
By: Dr. Kate Devlin
On: The Bunker
Are we witnessing the death of Silicon Valley as big tech shifts from physical products to services? And has the time of California being the promised land for budding tech bros gone? Dr. Kate Devlin is joined in The Bunker by Joel Kotkin, fellow in urban studies at Chapman University, to find out. Read more
By: John Oakley
John Oakley talks with Joel Kotkin, who is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. On this episode of the podcast, they discuss Kotkin’s recent piece on urban sprawl as an answer to the problem of expensive housing. Read more
The global housing crisis across the high-income world, particularly in the Anglosphere, represents perhaps the single biggest challenge to the future of the middle class. From the United Kingdom to Australia, an entire generation is facing a future that will preclude even those with decent incomes from ever owning a house or acquiring assets.
No issue plagues Californians more than the high cost of housing. By almost every metric—from rents to home prices—Golden State residents suffer the highest burden for shelter of any state in the continental U.S. Its housing prices are, adjusted for income, as much as two to three times higher than those in key competitive states, such as Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and North Carolina, and neighbors like Arizona and Nevada.
An author should be pleased to see his thesis bolstered by events. Yet since writing The Coming of Neo-Feudalism in 2020, I have not found any joy in the continued growth of the West’s class divides, as wealth becomes increasingly concentrated in ever fewer hands. The good news is that the working and middle classes are not yet out for the count, and are showing welcome signs of pushback against both state and corporate power.
For much of the 20th century, Los Angeles symbolised the future. Over the course of the century, the population grew 40-fold to nearly four million people.
But now, for the first time in its history, the population of Los Angeles is in decline, falling by 204,000 between July 2020 and July 2021. LA was once a magnet for investors. But recently many of the area’s corporate linchpins – including aerospace giant Northrop Grumman, Occidental Petroleum and Hilton Hotels – have left, taking with them high-paying jobs and philanthropic resources. Read more
Welcome to the future of American politics. The US population is changing in major ways that will likely alter the balance in politics and economics to the advantage of Republican-leaning red states, as well as suburbs and exurbs across the country.