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Chris Reed – More Californians living in cars? A ‘wheel estate’ boom is coming.

Summary:
The cost of housing is so outrageous in California that stories that might once have seemed preposterous now seem completely unsurprising. Case in point: In a scene straight out of a dystopian movie about a ravaged future Earth, homeless people set up an encampment at a toxic Superfund industrial site in Oxnard, saying they had nowhere else to go. Media coverage of the extreme cost of housing in the Golden State has focused on how it has increased homelessness and poverty, led more people to move to cheaper states and made it difficult for school districts, governments and private employers in the costliest areas to find workers. But there has been little focus on what our future ultimately will look like. This mess isn’t going to be solved by building “affordable housing” — at least as

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The cost of housing is so outrageous in California that stories that might once have seemed preposterous now seem completely unsurprising. Case in point: In a scene straight out of a dystopian movie about a ravaged future Earth, homeless people set up an encampment at a toxic Superfund industrial site in Oxnard, saying they had nowhere else to go.
Media coverage of the extreme cost of housing in the Golden State has focused on how it has increased homelessness and poverty, led more people to move to cheaper states and made it difficult for school districts, governments and private employers in the costliest areas to find workers. But there has been little focus on what our future ultimately will look like. This mess isn’t going to be solved by building “affordable housing” — at least as long as it’s of the expensive sort traditionally seen in California. Nor is it going to be solved by offering slight regulatory relief such as the state Legislature recently enacted to encourage housing construction.
Here’s my confident prediction about how this problem will be dealt with by a growing number of Californians — not the destitute homeless, but single people with both low-paying and middle-income jobs. They’re going to decide to live in their cars, trucks, vans, campers and recreational vehicles — and once this demand is clear, automakers will start building more vehicles designed to be lived in, entrepreneurs will sell kits to convert existing vehicles into more comfortable homes and businesses will emerge that cater to vehicle dwellers’ needs.
 San Diego Union-Tribune

Mike Norman
Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse.

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