In summary

State Sen. Scott Wiener wants to force apartment buildings in their single family neighborhoods. Beverly Hills Mayor John Mirisch really doesn’t like that idea.

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San Francisco’s Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener and Beverly Hills Mayor John Mirisch don’t agree on how to solve California’s housing affordability crisis.

Wiener thinks the answer lies in forcing cities to allow denser housing within their borders — apartment buildings right next to single family homes. Mirisch has characterized Wiener’s efforts as a giveaway to developers and Wall Street, which will only exacerbate California’s housing woes.

On this episode of “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast,” CalMatters’ Matt Levin and the L.A. Times’ Liam Dillon moderate a lively conversation between Wiener and Mirisch on the root causes of California’s affordability challenges and what the state and local governments should do about it. The podcast was recorded live at the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing in front of affordable housing developers eating breakfast burritos.

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Matt Levin is the data and housing dude for CalMatters. His work entails distilling complex policy topics into easily digestible charts and graphs, finding and writing original stories from data, yelling...