United States | Build, baby, build California tries to fix its housing mess The YIMBY movement wins a big victory Oct 14th 2025|Los Angeles|4 min read ONE OF THE most contentious and consequential housing reforms in California’s history was almost sunk by a former reality-TV star. American millennials might remember Spencer Pratt as the blonde bad boy they loved to hate on “The Hills”, an MTV show that chronicled the life of hot, young Angelenos in the noughties. More recently Mr Pratt has taken to podcasting from the empty lot where his home once stood. It burned in the Palisades Fire this year. He spreads the blame around. Gavin Newsom (the governor of California) and Karen Bass (the mayor of Los Angeles) are frequent targets. Mr Pratt also gets wonky. In a recent Instagram video he told fans to call Mr Newsom’s* office to* urge him to veto a housing bill: SB 79. SB 79 rezones state land around busy public-transport stops to allow for taller residential buildings. It also slaps hefty fines on cities that try to deny such buildings a permit. It was amended more than a dozen times to appease rural lawmakers, unions and tenants-rights groups—and it still barely passed the legislature. The bill spent weeks on the governor’s desk, which gave his pro-housing allies the willies and Mr Pratt some hope. But on October 10th Mr Newsom signed the law and delivered a huge win to the ascendantYIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) movement. The passage of SB 79 and more than 40 other housing reforms this year could be a turning point for a state that is crippled by its self-inflicted(自食惡果的)housing shortage. “The cost of inaction is simply too high,” wrote Mr Newsom upon signing the bill. He is right. Housing policy is not just a topic that “abundance bros”—Democratic thinkers who say their party needs to be more growth-friendly—debate on podcasts (though they do a lot of that). Building more homes is integral to California maintaining its political heft and again becoming a place where people want to live. The median sale price of **residential properties **in California is higher than in any other state. People are moving to cheaper places, and that exodus has become a political problem for Democrats. The Golden State could lose at least three congressional seats (and electoral votes) in the next reapportionment after the 2030 census. “Democrats need to be willing to say no to NIMBYs and to city councils that are yelling at them,” Scott Wiener, the bill’s author, told The Economist earlier this year. Mr Newsom, a Democrat, was also surely aware that he would have been labelled a hypocrite had he given in to pressure to veto the bill. The governor has consistently pushed to streamline the permitting process and to build more homes. (He even invited some of those abundance bros on his own podcast.) Mr Newsom’s record in California will be subject to intense scrutiny should he run for president in 2028. If things improve on his watch, it will be harder for Republicans to paint California as a hellscape with rampant homelessness and high costs (though they will certainly try). There are still plenty of details to be worked out. Housing wonks are already finding potential loopholes in the law that will need to be fixed. But it will be phased in over several years and allows for a lot of flexibility. Cities that don’t want to build where SB 79 tells them to can propose different locations—so long as the housing gets built somewhere. Daniel Lurie, San Francisco’s moderate mayor, is using the threat of state intervention to convince local NIMBYs that his plan to increase housing density is tame by comparison. Elsewhere, the state may need to be a bully. Contrary to Mr Pratt’s prattling, neither Pacific Palisades nor Altadena, another neighbourhood razed by fire, has transport stations big enough to trigger the law. Yet Ms Bass urged Mr Newsom to veto the bill so as not to “erode local control”—while still claiming that LA is a “pro-housing city”. The lack of progress the city is making on housing is clear. LA has only approved 13% of the units it says it needs to permit by 2029. “State intervention has been really the only pathway through which we’ve been able to make real progress on this issue,” says Nithya Raman, a rare YIMBY city-council member in Los Angeles. Now state intervention is coming. ■ 美國 | 蓋吧，寶貝，蓋吧加州嘗試修復其住房困局「YIMBY」（我家後院也行）運動迎來重大勝利 2025年10月14日｜洛杉磯｜閱讀時間約4分鐘加州歷史上最具爭議、卻也最具影響力的住房改革之一，差點被一位前實境節目明星給搞砸。美國千禧世代或許還記得史賓塞‧普拉特（Spencer Pratt），那位在《The Hills》（《山丘青春誌》）中被觀眾又愛又恨的金髮壞男孩。這部MTV節目記錄了2000年代初洛杉磯年輕俊男美女的生活。近年來，普拉特轉向播客創作，錄音地點正是他原本的住處——在今年的「帕利塞茲大火」（Palisades Fire）中被燒成一片空地。他將責任歸咎於許多人，其中包括加州州長蓋文‧紐森（Gavin Newsom）與洛杉磯市長凱倫‧巴斯（Karen Bass）。普拉特偶爾也談些政策。最近他在Instagram影片中呼籲粉絲致電紐森辦公室，要求他否決一項住房法案：SB 79。 SB 79將繁忙公共交通站周邊的州有土地重新劃區，以允許興建更高的住宅建築。該法案還對那些拒發建照的城市施以重罰。為了安撫農村議員、工會與租屋者權益團體，法案在立法過程中被修改十多次，但仍僅以微弱票數通過。此法案在州長辦公桌上擱置了數週，讓支持興建住房的一方緊張不安，也讓普拉特燃起希望。然而，10月10日，紐森簽署了該法，替迅速崛起的「YIMBY」（Yes In My Backyard，「我家後院也行」）運動送上重大勝利。今年通過的SB 79及其他四十多項住房改革，可能成為這個因自我造成的住房短缺而陷入困境的州的轉捩點。紐森在簽署法案時寫道：「不作為的代價實在太高。」他說得沒錯。住房政策不再只是所謂「豐饒派」（abundance bros「豐饒派」通常指的是2025年在美國興起的一種政治和經濟思潮，稱為**「豐饒議程」（Abundance Agenda）**。該思潮旨在透過增加供給、推動科技創新、改革限制性政策，以解決高生活成本和經濟成長緩慢等問題。）——那些主張民主黨應更加友善於經濟成長的進步派思想家——在播客上辯論的話題而已。大量興建住宅，是加州維持政治影響力、並重新成為人們嚮往居住之地的關鍵。加州住宅的中位售價高於全美任何州。人們正搬往較便宜的地方，而這股外流潮已成為民主黨的政治難題。加州在2030年人口普查後的重新分配中，可能至少失去三個國會席次（與選舉人票）。該法案作者、州參議員史考特‧維納（Scott Wiener）今年稍早對《經濟學人》表示：「民主黨人必須敢於對那些『NIMBY』（Not In My Backyard，「別在我家後院蓋」）派，以及那些在咆哮抗議的市議會說『不』。」身為民主黨人的紐森，也深知若屈服於否決法案的壓力，必將被批評為偽善。這位州長一貫主張簡化核准流程、加速住宅建設。（他甚至邀請過幾位「豐饒派」人士上自己的播客節目。）若他在2028年競選總統，外界必將嚴格檢視他在加州的施政成果。倘若加州情況在他任內改善，共和黨將更難再把加州描繪成充斥無家可歸者與高物價的「人間地獄」——儘管他們仍會努力這麼做。儘管如此，仍有許多細節有待釐清。住房政策專家已在新法中發現可能需要修補的漏洞。不過，該法將在數年內分階段實施，並保留高度彈性。若城市不願在SB 79指定地點興建，仍可提議替代地點——前提是最終確實要蓋出住宅。舊金山的溫和派市長丹尼爾‧盧瑞（Daniel Lurie）正利用州政府干預的威脅，來說服地方反對者接受他相對溫和的住宅密度提升計畫。在其他地區，州政府可能需要更強硬的手段。與普拉特的喋喋不休相反，無論是帕利塞茲還是另一個曾被大火摧毀的社區奧塔迪納（Altadena），都沒有足夠大型的交通站會被此法涵蓋。然而，巴斯市長仍敦促紐森否決該法，聲稱不應「削弱地方自治」，同時又宣稱洛杉磯是個「支持興建住房的城市」。事實卻顯示，該市的住房進展極為有限——至今僅核准了其設定到2029年目標的13%。洛杉磯少數支持「YIMBY」的市議員妮西亞‧拉曼（Nithya Raman）表示：「州政府的介入，其實是我們唯一能在這議題上取得實質進展的途徑。」如今，這樣的介入即將正式展開。■ -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

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