Americans have been voting with their feet and leaving California for Texas. There are many reasons for these moves, but foremost is that Texas has a lower cost of living, and by far the most important aspect of cost of living is housing. The obvious reason that California homes are more expensive is that the state makes it harder to build. But the question of why it is so much harder to build in California is not as obvious as some may think. In both Texas and California, land-use regulations are mainly local, and the states’ basic zoning-enabling laws for local government are similar…

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