Miles Warner at The Santa Monica Daily Press:
This week we found out officially, what many of us already know experientially, that Santa Monica is the most expensive city to conduct business in. Our academic neighbors to the East, Claremont McKenna College’s Rose Institute of State and Local Government studied some 216 municipalities and found that among fees, taxes, wages, rents, crime and housing costs, Santa Monica is the most expensive.
There is an unspoken belief in Santa Monica that one is so darned lucky to be here; to own a home here, to open a business here, to own an apartment building here etc, and as such as owners in such a fortunate place, they can shoulder the burden of any added costs or regulations.
While anyone in Santa Monica is decidedly privileged, this represents a hubris that we see in so many areas of our city which I believe is because we are: 1) run by ideologues, not pragmatists/utilitarians, 2) do not have fair minority representation because we have an “at large” political system, instead of districting and 3) we are 71% renters, who bear few of the costs themselves for business fees, bonds and other “costs to do business” in the city and so have very little incentive to push back against added fees and expenses.