Bill, a recent study by Trulia found, after examining the range of affordability for a typical middle class home against median household income, that home ownership was increasingly out of reach of the middle class along the coasts, and specifically in Los Angeles County. Please share your thoughts on the meaning and significance of that finding.

Bill Witte: First of all, I think one of the reasons that’s true is that Los Angeles County has a very high percentage of low and very-low-income households. You have both a supply and a demand problem. You have a relatively expensive housing market and an often lengthy and expensive approval process for new development,

In the Bay Area, which might even be less affordable, housing prices are even more astronomic but incomes are generally higher. That’s fundamentally not the case in Los Angeles.

What are the implications of this phenomenon?

First of all, it is worth considering the context in LA County for middle class residential options, which is related to a whole basket of issues, including quality of schools and other quality of life concerns. A lot of the working and middle class moved out of inner city neighborhoods to distant suburban areas in the ‘90s where housing is more affordable. So, an obvious problem arises from commuting—the time, the effect on families, and transportation costs, which have risen as gas prices have risen. That’s one problem. Another problem is the City and the County find it increasingly difficulty to support or attract the middle class, and that impacts a city’s economic base. The net result: middle class jobs may be less likely to locate in urban LA and LA County.