With Hollywood sputtering and new leadership taking shape in Sacramento and within City Halls across the Greater L.A. Area, the time for smart, flexible housing policy is now.

By Dan Yukelson, Executive Director, Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles (AAGLA)

As the international fervor surrounding the FIFA World Cup subsides, Los Angeles finds itself standing at a momentous crossroads. The tournament provided a brief, thrilling glimpse of our city operating as a premier global hub—filling hotel rooms, energizing local businesses, and showcasing our cultural richness to billions worldwide. Looking ahead to the 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, Southern California is undeniably positioning itself as the undisputed gateway city to the Pacific Rim and the world.

Yet, behind the gleaming stadium lights and international fanfare lies a stark economic reality that municipal leaders can no longer afford to ignore. For nearly a century, Los Angeles relied on a clear driver for its global prestige and local economy: Entertainment. Hollywood was our anchor industry, generating thousands of middle-class careers, driving commerce, and galvanizing local investment. But that golden era has faded. Caught in a vise of runaway production in search of business-friendly locales, tax-incentive wars from competing jurisdictions, and structural industry contraction, the traditional Hollywood economic engine is sputtering.

If Los Angeles is to thrive as a permanent global gateway—rather than merely serving as a temporary backdrop for quadrennial sporting spectacles—we must urgently ask ourselves: What will power our local economy over the next fifty years?

The answer lies directly beneath our feet: the housing sector, commercial real estate, and neighborhood reinvestment. Historically, housing has been viewed by City Hall not as a partner in economic development, but as a heavily restricted utility to be taxed, regulated, and squeezed. This strategy has proven disastrous. Decades of anti-housing policies, price controls, punitive transfer taxes such as Measure ULA, erratic rent freezes, and an impossibly dense labyrinth of municipal permitting have starved Los Angeles of the capital required to maintain and modernize its residential infrastructure.

Private capital is mobile. Investors and property owners—ranging from small family operations owning single duplexes to large institutional stewards—are increasingly choosing to deploy their capital in regions that welcome growth rather than penalize it. When we restrict reinvestment, buildings deteriorate, property tax revenues shrink, local tradespeople lose work, and local housing supply contracts, driving prices higher for everyone.

To capture the long-term economic promise of our global gateway status, Los Angeles must drastically shift its philosophy toward housing development and property ownership. We must drop the stifling regulations that stall residential revitalization and adopt a pragmatic, hybrid approach to urban livability.

A hybrid approach means moving past outdated binaries. It demands recognizing that market-rate housing development, middle-income housing incentives, and targeted social safety nets are complementary, not mutually exclusive. It means combining smart zoning flexibility—allowing commercial-to-residential conversions and mixed-use transit nodes—with streamlined, predictable permitting processes that eliminate years of costly red tape. Furthermore, it requires treating private housing providers as vital stakeholders in the city’s economic ecosystem rather than adversaries.

When property owners are permitted to reinvest in their assets without exorbitant fees and arbitrary restrictions, the multiplier effect across the Southern California economy is profound. Construction trades flourish, local retail districts gain neighborhood foot traffic, city tax coffers stabilize, and neighborhoods become safer, cleaner, and more livable. Housing supply increases and housing costs stabilize or decline.

We cannot afford to wait until the Olympic torch is lit in 2028 to fix our structural foundation. The economic momentum generated by major global events decays rapidly if the host city’s everyday business climate remains hostile to growth and reinvestment.

With upcoming municipal elections and prospective administration changes taking shape across both Los Angeles and the state of California, the political landscape is shifting. New leadership brings a rare, vital window of opportunity. The conversations around meaningful, structural changes cannot be deferred to future task forces or kicked down the road—they need to happen right now.

Our leaders must embrace a vision where Los Angeles isn’t just a scenic gateway for tourists and athletes, but a dynamic, resilient, and open hub for economic opportunity. By lowering regulatory barriers, fostering housing reinvestment, and establishing a sustainable framework for urban livability, we can build a city worthy of its global stage.

Daniel Yukelson is the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles (AAGLA), representing owners and managers of more than 350,000 rental units across Southern California.