The Henry George Program

Cincinnati is the only city that owns a railroad; they're looking to change this by selling it off permanently. Josh Junker is here to talk about all the ways this is imprudent. Discussion also about other transportation issues, including the incomplete subway, and working with hostile state government.

Donald Shoup is here to talk about parking.

Theresa O'Connor is based in Chico, and shares about the rise of anti-homeless politics on city council, what people have been doing to face off against it; changes in shelter and sweeps policy based upon court rulings, and what's next to take back city council in Chico.

Darrell Owens is back to talk about the bills of 2022 in California: will Gavin sign the bills on parking minimum abolition and commercial upzoning? What happened when the public housing bill, AB2053, died? Also the new fast food sectoral bargaining bill

Cameron Murray is an Australian economist with critiques of the common conceptions of how development takes place, generally disregarding the role of developers to landbank. We dig into the details here, talk about the promise of public housing (but also the political challenges), and dig into controversies over his discussion of "supply crisis myths"

Colin Drumm (author of a fascinating dissertation on the history and theory of money and legitimacy ) is here to talk about inflation indices and housing, and what it means for largely issues of equality, governance, and far more.

Andrew Crockett is the challenger to SCC assessor (and hgp bête noire) Larry Stone, and is promising to focus on housing, competence, and honesty as part of a modernization campaign. He's previously worked in the office, and talks both about what sorts of changes he can bring to the office within the constraints of Prop 13, etc, as well as some nuts-and-bolts explanation of the office's work.

Lars Doucet authored three exciting papers on the empirics of the land value tax and is here to talk about what he's learned, some of the controversies that have cropped up over some of the studies, and the future of using data to implement LVT in as rigorous a way as possible.

Alan Joyce is back on to talk about the San Diego Padres, how Joan Kroc was not allowed to donate the team to the city; how Petco Park was part of an ambitious city-directed real estate scheme, and the future of Major League Baseball, municipal finance, and land hustles.

Derek Sagehorn is the author of East Bay for Everyone's 2021 paper California Housing Corporation: The Case for a Public Developer , and is here to take about the overall case for a public houser as a way to create a more robust, equitable, and efficient housing industry, as well as new legislation taking up the issue: Alex Lee's AB2053 ( californiasocialhousing.org ). We also get into some talk a...

California nearly toppled minimum parking laws last year, and will likely try again (bless the name of Shoup); some weird discourse arose around why this is a bad thing... because of value capture?!!? (???) Enter Michael Manville of UCLA Luskin who spoke out against this analysis; he's here to talking about the nuts and bolts of value capture paradigms and parking policy, what happens when we crea...

"It's a Wonderful Life" (1946, Frank Capra) is a Christmas classic, but also offers a great deal of insight into 20th century urban issues, the ideology of self-improvement through homeownership, lines of credit, and ex-urban sprawl. Do we live in George Bailey's world today, and what does this mean for us?

Josh Albrektson of South Pasadena talks about his work fighting against illegality in his city's housing element, and how PlaceWorks is a contractor at the heart of a massive scheme to underbuild housing and make many rich. We also dig into the nuts-and-bolts of HCD's process, legislation to keep it on rails, and how people can keep our Housing Elements honest.

Gene Slater's new book is the secret history of Realtors, their role in create modern housing markets and politics, and importantly, their role for incubating racial segregation in our cities. How did Realtors manage to create a backlash against Fair Housing built around "freedom", establishing a California constitutional amendment, and laying the future of the modern right-wing?

Paul Williams has new article on public housing out, talking about the various potential space we have to explore the benefits of public ownership, with an emphasis on the bureaucratic apparatus we wield to achieve it; we talk about what this means for the future of economic justice in cities, and effective governance.

Darrell Owens is back to talk about the 2021 legislative wins (SB8, SB9, SB10) and losses (AB1401); and also to discuss the debut article on his new Substack ; what do we talk about when we talk about vacancies?

Patrick Condon, Vancouver-based urban design professor, published Sick City in the last year, which invited a good deal of controversy; though the book was all about overcrowding, inequality, and georgist theories of land rents, it was most rapturously praised by Livable California and various homeowner NIMBYs. Why? And can we agree with all the book's conclusions?

Rohin Ghosh was a high-schooler in Palo Alto just a few months ago, but has already had years of involvement in renter and houseless campaigns throughout the Peninsula, and is here to talk about what's it's like for teens in this crazy environment, as well as his perspective on the landscape of non-profits throughout the Peninsula, based on his work. Also talk about how cities are reflecting to RH...

While moratoria expires federally, California has one more go-round of "eviction protections"; landlords get paid out 100%, but where exactly are tenants today? Shanti Singh of Tenants Together is back to talk about how Sacramento crafts tenant bills; also talk about how SF CLT's is held up by dismal city institutions.

Alex Contreras is from Downey, CA (southeast LA County), which is facing off against a freeway expansion, which will destroy homes and take away public space. Who's responsible, and how is Alex and everybody else in the Happy City Coalition organizing to stop it?

Jennifer Bradshaw is a housing activist in Vancouver, and is here to talk about how social housing and public housing works in her city, and the dismal politics that pits them against each other. Who controls property wealth, and how can we organize to achieve more equitable ends?

Derek Sagehorn of East Bay for Everyone and Common Ground California is the co-author of a paper on transit value capture , and is here to talk about the dismal history of Bay Area transit and recapturing land value, and its more rosy future. What is Link21, and why do we need to take on Prop 13 and Prop 218 to make it work? Also featuring a discussion of the sort of *bad* "value capture" beloved...

Alex Fisch is the mayor of Culver City, and a powerful poster on California Housing Twitter; we talk about projects within the city to improve the homelessness crisis, as well as recapture value from land value uplift; also talk about regional cooperation amongst the many governments, and how Culver City addresses its racist foundations a century ago

Shane Phillips of the UCLA Lewis Center is on to talk about his recent Atlantic article about the limitations of homeownership of a wealth-building tool; we also dig into his 2020 book "The Affordable City" and talk about what tools cities can use so that everything is less screwed up. Only the most controversial topics get discussed: vacancy studies, vacancy control/decontrol, the politics of ren...

Ma’ayan Dembo, formerly of KZSU fame, is back on the airwaves to share her academic research , done in conjunction with ACT-LA, about alternatives to policing in transit. In Los Angeles as well as the Bay Area, what interventions are effective, what best works to actually make riders feel safe, and how does this integrate into the larger homelessness crisis?