PositiveThe NationGolden Gates , a new book on the housing crisis by New York Times reporter Conor Dougherty, dives straight into these problems, skillfully exploring everything from the yes in my backyard (YIMBY) movement, which promotes more housing development, to anti-gentrification activism, the normalization of homelessness, and the factors that have made it so prohibitively expensive to build anything new ... Digging through the archives, Dougherty shows just how long California leaders have been aware of the housing crisis that the state faced if it didn’t alter course ... Yet a crucial question in Golden Gates remains unanswered: What can governments do to help those who need housing now without enacting policies that could make the situation worse in the long term, whether by exacerbating displacement and segregation or by contributing to an even more severe shortage down the road? ... \'Mixed solutions can feel like a cop-out,\' Dougherty writes, \'especially in polarized times. And yet, over and over, in city after city, it’s always where people end up and what seems most likely to work.\' He has a point. To move forward, movements will have to find ways to break out of their particular communities and build strength across class lines.
