A Los Angeles Times article and KNX News report on L.A.’s soaring housing prices turned to UCLA Luskin’s Michael Lens for context. The newspaper reported that the median home price in Los Angeles had risen to just under $1 million, a 30% increase over the past five years. “Even if it is an arbitrary number, it’s an astounding one,” said Lens, chair of the Luskin School’s undergraduate program and a scholar of urban planning and public policy. Driven by scarcity and demand, the rising prices also impact the rental market, Lens said – but he added that state programs to increase the overall housing stock are falling short. His proposed solutions included “getting rid of single-family zoning and upzoning those neighborhoods,” removing “onerous parking requirements,” and scrapping rules on minimum setbacks and other burdensome mandates. Altogether, the state should fix “a lot of boring zoning things that together make the cost of building more housing more expensive,” Lens said.