2026 Housing Solutions & American Success Summit Podcast Special

Homeownership in California is starting to sound like a luxury product, even for people we rely on every day. We’re at Chapman University’s housing summit with researchers, builders, advocates, lenders, and public officials to ask one simple question with huge consequences: if Californians still want to own a home, why has the system gotten so good at producing rentals and so bad at producing starter homes?We dig into fresh numbers on the housing supply gap, the missing middle, and what it means when only a small slice of households can afford a median-priced home. Then the conversation turns personal and urgent: firefighters commuting three, five, even eight hours, families selling a home because childcare and interest rates crush the budget, and a growing insurance crisis that can price buyers out even when they find a place. Along the way we weigh the big structural blockers people keep running into, from zoning and CEQA risk to impact fees and local incentives that quietly punish homeownership.We also spend real time on what can actually work at scale: ADUs that can be converted into condos, manufactured homes on permanent foundations financed as real property, shared equity products that cut payments without trapping buyers, pre-approved plan catalogs to speed permits, and local “yes to housing” execution like Santa Ana’s infill pipeline and homelessness reduction. If you care about affordable housing, housing policy, and restoring a realistic path to homeownership in California, this is the playbook conversation.If this helped you think differently, subscribe, share the episode with someone who cares about housing, and leave a review. What’s the single biggest change you’d make to unlock starter homes where you live?Support Our WorkThe Center for Demographics and Policy focuses on research and analysis of global, national, and regional demographic trends and explores policies that might produce favorable demographic results over time. It involves Chapman students in demographic research under the supervision of the Center’s senior staff.Students work with the Center’s director and engage in research that will serve them well as they look to develop their careers in business, the social sciences, and the arts. Students also have access to our advisory board, which includes distinguished Chapman faculty and major demographic scholars from across the country and the world.For additional information, please contact Mahnaz Asghari, Associate Director for the Center for Demographics and Policy, at (714) 744-7635 or [email protected] us on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-feudal-future-podcast/Tweet thoughts: @joelkotkin, @mtoplansky, #FeudalFuture #BeyondFeudalism #centerfordemographicspolicy #chapmanuniversityLearn more about Joel's book 'The Coming of Neo-Feudalism': https://amzn.to/3a1VV87Sign Up For News & Alerts: http://joelkotkin.com/#subscribeThis show is presented by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, which focuses on research and analysis of global, national and regional demographic trends and explores policies that might produce favorable demographic results ov...