Place the Blame Where It Belongs

* Re “3 More Crises Are in Works, Thanks to State,” Orange County Voices, March 18:

Blame whom? Now that the power crisis has our attention, let’s sound the alarm on other pending state crises! And blame environmentalists! In his essay, Assemblyman John Campbell finds three big ones: water, housing, and transportation. Let’s reconsider the first two.

The assemblyman says we are too dependent on imported water and implies the bottleneck is environmental restrictions. Actually, our growing demand for water from Arizona and Northern California and for agriculture mostly explains things. We used more than our legal allocation of Colorado River water for most of the last century, a practice coming to an end only because Arizona unwisely spent billions to store its water.

We could relax Northern California environmental standards substantially to get a bit more water, which those folks oppose for some reason, or barely reduce state and federal subsidies to farmers in the Central Valley to get lots more. Farmers use 80% of the water in this state; that could fall by 10% and increase the amount available elsewhere. This is hardly a pending crisis in any event, and if you must blame someone, blame Arizona for not giving us its water, blame the agriculture lobby and then blame farmers for wanting to trim costs.

Housing prices are headed up. This is great if you own, but this is clearly a huge problem for those down on their luck, just moving into the state or newly forming households. Blame the scarcity of urban land, rising average incomes, and the relative promise of the California economy to prospective immigrants.

But regarding state policy, blame Proposition 13 and other laws that limit cities to the sole option of favoring commercial over residential development to generate new revenue. Cities don’t want to build housing mainly for these fiscal reasons. Assemblyman Campbell’s claim that dropping the Endangered Species Act and paring the land entitlement process will lower housing costs is not only incorrect, it undermines the value of planning--especially at the regional and state level--where growth should go and what it should look like. Better to blame the Legislature and all recent governors for systematically raiding municipal revenues.

Yes, we need more affordable housing. Less planning and inattention to legitimate environmental protections won’t help. A more rational public finance system and greater state support for regional housing strategies would.

Leadership in Sacramento that recognized these plain truths would be invigorating. Alarmist diversions, on the other hand, are just that.

RANDALL CRANE

Associate Professor

UCLA School of Public Policy

and Social Research

Irvine