The Henry George Program

We finally talk about McDonald's, and the big business of landowning with McDonald's expert Alan Joyce. How did the McDonald's Corporation leverage land speculation to grow faster than its competitors? What special relationships did the rise of McDonald's have in common with suburbanization? And should McDonald's just go all-in on becoming a REIT?

The Embarcadero Institute is a think tank based in Palo Alto, producing slick-looking white papers about how California doesn't need so much housing, actually. Stan Oklobdzija, research director for CA YIMBY, is on to pick apart the claims these papers make. We talk shop on headship rates, RHNA adjustments, derpy quadratic fits, and much more.

Senator Stanley Chang is here from Hawaii to talk about Aloha Homes, a proposal to import what works about Singapore-style public housing (cheap, dense condos built on public land). History about housing and land in Hawaii, including its public trust model.

Palo Alto has a large park that has a unique ban on non-residents. They're changing this prohibition... but not if Lydia Kou's referendum has anything to say about it. We have on former Palo Alto councilmember Cory Wolbach to talk about the history of this park, the legal challenge which Palo Alto settled but may resurrect, and how this fits into the particular ideology of many Palo Alto residents...

It's been a painful election in many ways (Prop 15 losing, Prop 22 winning), and local races were a mixed bag. Darrell Owens of East Bay for Everyone is one to give a post-mortem. For obvious reasons, we get to talking about municipal annexation, vacancy rate controversies, and value capture.

We check back with Shanti Singh of Tenants Together to find out about Gavin Newsom's eviction moratorium and its many flaws, talk about how this relates to the financialization of housing, and talk about action plans between here and February.

There's one wild race in the South Bay for the state senate, in which one candidate took dubious positions on housing, labor, taxes, and more... but still got the endorsement of Barack Obama. We talk about this race and more, with Prop 15 advocate Natasha Cougoule and transit advocate Monica Mallon; what's the deal with Prop 22, how do local and national political organizations align and depart .....

It's election time! We have on Angie Evans and Jordan Grimes of Peninsula for Everyone to talk about each of the roughly 1,000 city council elections up and down the peninsula, plus local and statewide ballot measures... as well as discursions into the weird and woolly world of housing.

John Lashlee is running for Mountain View City Council on a Democratic Socialist Platform; we talk about what this means, in terms of creating a "snowballing" effect for municipal housing policy, police issues, and economic justice for residents. We also talk some theory, getting a marxist perspective to housing policy.

Darrell Owens of East Bay for Everyone is back, and answering the big questions: is disinvestment in minority neighborhoods the right approach for anti-gentrification (no); are there Black anti-tenant NIMBYs in SoCal who get confused for anti-gentrification advocates (yes); are duplexes scary (listen to find out). Finally, hear about Berkeley becoming the first US city to take the police out of tr...

Jordan Grimes has been live-tweeting Livable California calls over the last year, and comes on the show to share his insights into the ideology and political framework of California's NIMBY conspiracy. Learn more about Joel Kotkin, Jeffersonianism, what 'WIMBYs' are, and what the left should do about it. Also some brief updates on anti-eviction bills and whatever the hell was going on with Caltrai...

Chris Beiser is back to talk about his recent article on Administration Markets ; we talk what this means for the bureaucracies we see all around us. Topics covered: structured competition in South Korea, Estonian e-residency, automation, railroad standards, Zume pizza, railroad standards, city planning, and the role for risk and debt during the COVID crisis.

We're in the midst of an eviction crisis in the danger of getting much, much worse. Shanti Singh of Tenants Together is on to talk about what is getting done, and what can be done to stop this. (We agree not to go at each other's throats about land-use for an entire show!) Talk about local-level, state-level, and federal-level interventions; talk about neoliberal vs forward-looking approaches to r...

Max and I check in with San Francisco, in the aftermath of COVID, and discover it's still cursed. Talk about its aesthetic identity, the baffling lack of ideology of the progs, and more.

Laksh Bhasin (of the SF Berniecrats) is a co-author of the SF Community Housing Act, which looks to cross-subsidize public housing so that the city can operate units with less dependence on the vagaries of federal financing. We talk the nuts and bolts of the policy, interesting new ways it empowers its tenants, its political challenges, as well as the future of Article 34.

COVID has nuked tax receipts, and cities are hurting; what patterns do we see in their budget crises, and what can we do to avoid a new regime of austerity?

Monica Mallon is a SJSU student and transit advocate, active in the plans to improve regional buses and more before COVID, and now active in trying to best help our transit agencies as we deal with a transit-unfriendly crisis.

Coronavirus is throwing the housing world upside-down; we talk to Darrell Owens and Derek Sagehorn of East Bay for Everyone and freelance writer Diego Aguilar-Canabal about the turmoil. Discussion about eviction moratoria, public housing, rent suspensions, municipal budgets, and more

Discussing MMT, other currency theories, and more, with some focus on Silvio Gesell; recorded a mere month ago, from a very different pre-COVID world, but more relevant than ever--

Victoria Fierce tells all about what it's like to serve on the RHNA Methodology Committee, her election to the Dem Central Committee, and how it fits in with an anarchist outlook.

Sacramento passed state-wide protections to limit rent increases and prevent just cause evictions, a real win for renters. BUT: various loopholes led to the need for a series of urgency ordinances on a city-by-city basis to prevent last-minute evictions. We hear from Stasha Powell, tenant activist (of One Redwood City) and Jordan Grimes (of Peninsula for Everyone) to hear about these actions, and...

Roberta Ahlquist (of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom) and Jeff Levinsky (of Palo Alto Matters) are on the show to talk about the aftermath of the evictions at the President Hotel, where AJ Capital is still attempting for a hotel conversion, and we hear background on the Palo Alto Tenants Union.

Derek Sagehorn (of East Bay for Everyone) has been raising awareness for Prop 13 Split Roll (Schools and Communities First) through a series of walking tours, writing articles , and now comes on the show to discuss the nuances of the law, the urgent need to get this revenue to the cities who need it, the history of the political coalitions behind Prop 13, and more.

San Francisco is cursed, and leaves everybody with a no-win decision between lacklustre "progressives" and incrementalist moderates. Why is this so, and what can be done about it? We use material analysis to learn more. Chatter about the November election.

Alex Nunez is a housing equity advocate for Cafecito and the Housing Justice Coalition, he's here to talk about the recent RV Ordinances in Mountain View, and discuss paths for real and effective anti-displacement programs.