When you were a child, did you ever try walking down the upward side of an escalator at a mall?  It can be dangerous and often results in bringing you back to where you started.  Howard Husock's recent "How to Build a Housing Ladder: Lessons from, and for, Silicon Valley" (Oct. 3, 2018) is an analogous backward attempt to solve the Silicon Valley affordable housing crisis. Husock's solution is to build new "middle housing" (2 to 9 units) in areas where there is a lack of developable land: As part of mixed commercial-residential developments Elevated above parking lots in air rights projects Converting open space in office parks Small multi-family housing projects on "greenfield" (unzoned) land From 1979 to 1985, I implemented every one of Husock's above policy prescriptions with negligible results when I worked for the L.A. County Community Development Block Grant program: A study for a 1,000-unit...(Read Full Article)