Will Granny Flats Replace Green Lawns in California’s Backyards?
Historic Deregulation Is Freeing Homeowners to Build in Hopes of Easing the Growing Housing Crisis
A snarky reader, annoyed at some praise of California’s governor in this space, recently asked: Where exactly do I keep my shrine to Gavin Newsom?
My answer: In the same place everyone should—the backyard.
My little shrine’s location honors one of contemporary California’s crazier contradictions. Even as state government regulates more and more of our lives and livelihoods—even the straws through which we drink—it has embraced a historic deregulation of the spaces behind our homes. And even as Newsom has intruded more deeply into daily realities than any previous governor, he has …