I grew up in Mount Pleasant and moved away, and when I learned the town had banned new townhomes and apartments for seven years, I was filled with dread. It reminded me of policies that led to California’s housing catastrophe. To stay and thrive, South Carolinians need more housing, which can be built by honoring local traditions.
After graduating from the College of Charleston, I moved to the Washington area and got married. When my wife became pregnant, we worried about affording a home. My parents helped us, but the prices were still eye-popping. Eventually, housing became my passion. I founded a local volunteer housing advocacy group, which made me aware of affordability problems around the country, particularly in California.
California has half of the nation’s unsheltered homeless population. Many college students sleep in cars, families leave in droves, and the state’s most progressive, self-righteous cities are the most hostile to people and new homes.
Parallels between how California grew and how South Carolina is growing run deeper than Mount Pleasant’s multifamily moratorium. Most development is on the edges of cities and towns, eating up the land and creating long commutes. Spread-out development and long drives make traffic congestion much worse. California’s notorious traffic is the product of endless sprawl. South Carolina’s precious marshes, forests and swamps — which housing opponents claim to defend — are paved over because new housing is allowed almost nowhere else.
Many South Carolinians worry that new homes raise prices, but the state actually issued permits for fewer homes per resident in 2025 than in 2021, worsening affordability. Housing production crashed before the Great Recession and took a decade to recover as the state population rapidly grew.
That growth is a challenge, but new families are a blessing, not a burden. Forgive me as a proud son for offering the example of my father, a cancer researcher. He moved his family here in 1993 to join MUSC, eventually helping the university secure a prestigious National Cancer Institute designation.
People contribute to their community, but places shape people, too. As I strive to be a good father, husband and friend, I realize that my values are Lowcountry values: hospitality, a desire for civility, patriotism grounded in gratitude and an appreciation for the wisdom of tradition.
The broken housing market is undermining those values. Newcomers are resented rather than welcomed. Active-duty Air Force and Coast Guard personnel increasingly struggle to live near Joint Base Charleston. This weakens our national security but helps clarify the nature of the problem. It is more productive to frame the affordability crunch as a shortage of homes, not an excess of people.
To build badly needed homes, South Carolinians should look to their rich traditions. Charleston is a beloved example of how cities historically, organically grew. The traditional development pattern of Charleston (and Upstate mill towns) was compact and naturally brought neighbors together. Growth stemmed from people exercising their property rights to create beautiful spaces for themselves and their families.
I’On in Mount Pleasant shows how to return to those principles. Its narrow Charleston singles are based on iconic, carefully protected peninsula houses. Homes in I’On command high prices, but their rarity is artificial. The Lowcountry, and the entire state, should legalize more types of homes, including traditional Charleston singles and rowhouses. South Carolina must figure out a way to accommodate growth; otherwise, it will slip into a California-like nightmare.
In recent generations, local governments adopted regulations designed to make homes scarce and expensive. Cities and towns embraced minimum lot sizes after World War II, partially to ban starter homes and insulate their schools from the baby boom.
The South Carolina I know cherishes children. But the state will stop being a great place to live and grow up if people with deep roots cannot afford to stay and maintain their traditions. Adult children and grandchildren who want to build good lives should not be forced to leave and sever their family and community ties. They should be able to raise their own children beneath palmetto trees.
