Yes. Because of policies that favor landowners housing in California has become primarily an investment instead of a place to live.
However it's not simple supply and demand. We have a ton of "speculative demand" which increases when prices rise and we can't reasonably stop that by building more. Yes California needs to build but even if we started Shanghai levels of growth today it's unlikely we'd get affordable cities before climate change renders the state unlivable.
We need to kill land speculation and taxes are the right way to do that.
I agree that a land tax is great policy if anyone wants to argue about fairness and outcomes. (And therefore I suspect politicians talking about land taxes will by a sign of the end times.)
But it is very easy to have cheap housing and lots of it without a land tax. If I could sign a 50 years lease with strong protections that might even be better for me than buying, and landlords would have the usual incentives to build lots of houses if there is demand.
The problem in California sounds like the landholders who are being rewarded are the ones who choose not to build more dwellings. Greedy landlords in high-demand areas would build more, because then they make more money. I'd rather rent to an apartment building of people than a wealthy middle class family. And they'd be making generational fortunes doing that.
However it's not simple supply and demand. We have a ton of "speculative demand" which increases when prices rise and we can't reasonably stop that by building more. Yes California needs to build but even if we started Shanghai levels of growth today it's unlikely we'd get affordable cities before climate change renders the state unlivable.
We need to kill land speculation and taxes are the right way to do that.