California’s housing shortage stems from issues with land: strict regulation, detrimental NIMBYs, expensive prices.
Joe Mathews of the San Diego Union-Tribune argues that the state should consider seasteading, creating homes at sea. On a large scale, self-sustaining floating cities could eventually become a reality. More modest plans, like a recent proposal to turn an old military ship into housing for the homeless, could be enacted in the near future.
Seasteading also could mitigate climate change. Sea-based cities would provide a dry run — OK, a wet run — for the not-so-distant future, when rising sea levels inundate California’s greatest coastal cities, forcing millions of us to learn how to live on the ocean. In this way, cities on the sea would ease today’s housing problems — while furthering our climate change leadership and preparations for a watery future.
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