For decades, people have moved to California in pursuit of the “California dream” – the idea of owning a home in the most beautiful state in the country, with beaches, mountains, deserts, and forests, blessed with abundant opportunity and the freedom to live the life you want to live.

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Most Californians today would probably tell you they still hold on to that dream – but the high cost of housing is making it seem impossibly out of reach. Ironically, there’s an aspect of that dream that may be partially to blame: Our outdated ideas about how many homes can be built in our cities.

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For the early phases of California’s growth as a state (and the growth of the U.S. as a nation), it was possible to let everyone live on their own plot of land, with a big house and a sprawling lawn surrounded by a fence. As our state urbanized, this view of housing quickly became problematic: You can’t have productive, diverse, affordable cities made up of thousands of mini-ranches.

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And indeed, we’re now facing the consequences of this outdated mode of housing development: The median price of a home in California is now nearly $1 million.

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Much of this insane cost of housing is actually not the house itself, but the land beneath it. Land value is not inherent to a piece of dirt; it grows from all the valuable things that are happening around that land – in the case of cities like San Diego, Los Angeles, Long Beach, and others, that value is the sum total of good-paying jobs, great schools, cultural amenities, theater, arts, restaurants, beaches, mountains – all the things that people would pay good money to have in their community.

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But our current system of land use regulations has shut most people out. Strict zoning that prohibits the construction of more homes on existing parcels of land has forced more of our neighbors to leave. And the restrictions can launch a vicious cycle, as local governments lose out on the increased property tax revenues that would result from allowing more homes on large residential parcels.

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These rules block the construction of entry-level, “starter” homes that the average working family can afford. They have their roots in racial segregation and exclusion – and they must be reformed.

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In an effort to create more home ownership opportunities for working Californians, state Sen/ Anna Caballero has proposed SB 1123 – a fundamental land use reform that has the potential to bring back the “California dream.”

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