Tap Underused & Surplus Land — And Let Our Sustainable Places Keep Thriving
California is a vast state whose towns and cities are filled with vacant and underutilized land — not the land that is already thriving with historic resources, stable housing, strong communities, and trees to fight the heat-island effect, which taken together creates lasting well-being.
Infill is NOT the concept — now growing a head of steam in Sacramento, and even among some advocacy groups — of paving over the places where people live and thrive, to build bigger housing in its place. That misinformed urge is the opposite of sustainability.
We agree with Senate Majority Leader Robert Hertzberg and others, that it is time for California to focus on creating truly affordable housing on its surplus and underutilized land, where people do not already live. Surely a state that can find all of us at tax time can find its available and buildable urban and suburban land.