I lived in California for four years. In that time, I left San Francisco because of wildfire smoke twice, helped plant trees in burn scars three times, and got a taste of the constant concerns over the pressure of cataclysm that native Californians have gotten used to. I say all that not to establish myself as an expert in California and its issues, just to say that when the Los Angeles wildfires broke out earlier this year, I saw the continuing of a story that had been underway for decades, if not millennia. One of the chapters in that story is housing. It’s no secret that constrained housing has been an issue plaguing U.S. cities, especially on the West Coast. That issue has bubbled up in public discourse several times in the past year, with a case on homeless encampments making it to the Supreme Court and narratives of immigrants squeezing housing supply influencing the 2024 election.
However, fewer people were connecting issues in the housing market to the California wildfires. One of the people making the case that the two were closely intertwined was Jack Nicastro, who wrote a piece in Reason Magazine about how California’s policy exacerbated the effects of the wildfires.
The piece gave a very cogent argument, and I knew I had to talk to him about it. Like me, Jack is not a California native. The two of us aren’t authorities on Los Angeles. However, we’re both very interested in housing policy, the wild-urban interface, and perverse incentives of government regulation. I sat down to talk to Jack for 25 minutes about his article, and that conversation turned into a 45-minute nerd-fest over libertarian theory and the residential insurance markets.
I really enjoyed getting the chance to talk with Jack Nicastro for the Tangle podcast, and I’m really glad we get to present the whole conversation to you in full.
Ari & the Tangle team
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