Professor Argues Private Homeownership Helps Cause California Wildfires

Flames sweep through a rural community at the Blue Cut Fire near Wrightwood, Calif., on Aug. 17, 2016. David McNew/Getty Images

Californians’ insistence on owning their own homes is “reinforcing” the state’s rampant wildfires, according to a professor whose recent column has sparked controversy.

Americans’ “aspirations of home ownership” and “belief in the importance of private property” are “reinforcing” the conditions that lead to wildfires, Kian Goh, assistant professor of urban planning at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, wrote Dec. 23, 2019, in a column at the left-wing magazine The Nation.