Building Your Block is a limited-run newsletter that aims to give Los Angeles residents the foundation to understand and participate in the current debate over building new housing.
L.A.’s housing crisis intersects with nearly every problem residents are facing today, whether that’s long commutes, education inequality, childcare access or food insecurity. It’s everybody’s problem to solve, but it’s hard to find a common understanding of what the root of the problem even is, or what residents can do about it.
That’s where Building Your Block comes in. This seven-issue newsletter series zooms out on the housing conversations L.A is having so that readers better understand where individual laws, policy changes or controversies fit into the larger picture.
Each issue tackles one big question underpinning our local housing battles, from “Why aren’t we building enough affordable housing?” to “Why is all the development only happening in some neighborhoods?” Readers receive one issue a day until the series is finished.
Each issue has a slightly different format, depending on what is best suited to discuss that day’s topic. For example, Issue 3 explores whether L.A. is building too much luxury housing by breaking down three common narratives about market-rate developments and comparing them against existing research. Issue 6 examines the different facets of community opposition to new development, first laying out why people might oppose new housing, the mechanics that allow opposition to have so much power, and then what policies may be changing the current dynamic.
The final issue includes a laundry list of ways readers can get involved in housing development in their neighborhoods, whether it’s giving feedback on community plans or giving public comment at a city planning hearing.
The series is written by civics and democracy producer Brianna Lee, who spent many years producing LAist’s local voter guides. Building Your Block was designed with a similar approach, synthesizing complex and often heated topics in a digestible, conversational way that lets readers decide where they stand and helps them feel a sense of agency over the problem.
