KANYE WEST IS one of the most famous hip hop artists and fashion designers in the world. His music, art, and antics are frequently front-page news in the entertainment sections, but his fight with government bureaucrats to develop innovative housing options—on his own property—introduced new audiences to the destruction that can come from burdensome and unbending regulatory states.
This past summer, Kanye began work on a new housing community in Los Angeles, developing a series of dome-like structures as low-income housing on a 300-acre plot he owns. While the structures themselves looked bizarre, if successful they could have helped thousands of LA’s neediest. Yet not long after work started, city officials informed Kanye he had to either acquire certain permits or tear down the structures. Ultimately, Kanye was forced to scrap the project and the structures were destroyed.
By the most recent official count, Los Angeles County has a homeless population of just under 59,000; the number for the entire state of California comes to 130,000. To put that in perspective, that’s more than the entire population of 23 different state capitals. Orange County alone saw a 50% increase in homelessness in 2018.
You shouldn’t need government permission to do good work on your own property. But government has a long track record of shutting down potentially beneficial private social projects solely because a property owner didn’t get their blessing first, or it doesn’t fit into their short-sighted plan, or a host of other reasons.
It’s time for governments to get out of the way.