08/26/2026
Los Angeles does not lack ambition, programs, or public spending. It lacks consistent delivery.
This City Journal article, “L.A.’s Governance Failures,” offers a sobering look at a city struggling with the basics: maintaining streets and sidewalks, keeping public spaces safe, responding to emergency calls, permitting new housing, and addressing homelessness with measurable results. (https://www.city-journal.org/article/los-angeles-governance-failures )
🏢For rental housing providers, these failures are not abstract. Delayed approvals increase the cost of building housing. Deteriorating infrastructure creates safety risks and legal liability. Public disorder affects residents, small businesses, and entire neighborhoods.
And when policies intended to expand affordability make housing more expensive or difficult to produce, the consequences ultimately reach the people those policies are meant to help.
❓The question is not whether Los Angeles should be compassionate. The question is whether compassion without accountability is compassionate at all.
A city with a nearly $14 billion budget should be able to answer basic questions:
- How many people moved from homelessness into permanent housing?
- How quickly are sidewalks, streets, and streetlights being repaired?
- How long does it take to approve a housing project?
- Are public spaces safe and accessible to everyone?
- Are new taxes and regulations producing more housing—or less?
Safe, stable, and affordable housing depends on effective government. Los Angeles should measure success not by the number of plans announced or dollars allocated, but by outcomes residents can see and experience.
What basic function of city government should Los Angeles fix first?
And what metric should leaders be required to meet?
It’s a case study in urban dysfunction.
