"California has the distinction of having the 11 least-affordable metropolitan areas in the country. One would need to go all the way down to 12th place ”” and across the country to the New York region's northern suburbs ”” to find a non-California metropolitan area on the least-affordable list of 2005." | nytimes
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There is no one answer, but demographers and public planners who study such trends say that a confluence of factors in California — both artificial and natural — have combined to create a particularly acute problem.
"California has both political and geographical constraints on building," said Dowell Myers, professor of policy, planning and development at the University of Southern California. "That drives up prices, and then it snowballs."
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There are a number of reasons for the restraints on home building, including the fact that many desirable areas in the state are already "built out" and the permit process is more complex and drawn out now than it was a few decades ago.
Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist for the Realtors group, said the state needs about 250,000 units a year to meet housing demand. "We've been below that every year over the past 10 years," she said.
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