In a 2019 study on housing demand in Hawaii, the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism determined that we need at least another 25,000 housing units over the next 10 years to meet demand, and as many as 47,000.

The Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp. had SMS Research run the numbers, and after taking into account the existing shortage from previous years, it upped the urgency to 50,000 units over the next five years.

For a state that typically builds between 2,000 to 4,000 new units per year, 50,000 is a tall order. If we maintained the high end of that range, it would still take 12 to 13 years to reach 50,000 units.

That’s a long time to wait, and that’s assuming housing demand and general economic conditions don’t change, and the existing housing stock – much of which was built half a century ago – remains in functioning use.

This all sounds bad, and it is bad, but as out of reach as 50,000 new units in five years feels, it’s still an underestimation according to local economist Paul Brewbaker…

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A lot of popular ideas about the problem are focused on trying to reduce “bad” demand for local housing: taxing owners of perpetually unoccupied units, cracking down on short-term rentals, disincentivizing quick-flip investing. Those kinds of things might help a little, but in the absence of developing more affordable housing, they’re likely not enough.

Development in Hawaii is fraught. Some challenges are unavoidable. Since Hawaii is so geographically isolated, building materials will always be more expensive than they are on the mainland, and the history of development in Hawaii is inextricably linked to the disenfranchisement and displacement of Hawaiians, still ongoing. There’s no easy way around these issues.

But some of the challenges to developing new housing are self-inflicted, specifically when it comes to zoning laws. A growing body of literature suggests a direct correlation between strict zoning requirements and housing affordability…

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A part of me has always hated parades. I can understand why parents take their kids to them – it’s something free and different to do, a way to spend time together outside without having to plan or do much. But I don’t have kids, and my memories of going to parades when I was a kid are generally defined by being bored and uncomfortable.

I remember sitting in the sun as forgettable floats slowly inched by, the smells of sunscreen and sweat wafting in the air, surrounded by fidgety crowds, which inevitably led to at least some unwanted social interactions. All the while I could have been watching TV or reading a book or going to the beach — or potentially all three of those in the same time it takes for a parade to finish. And that’s to say nothing of traffic disruptions and litter left behind.

But lately I’ve been seeing videos and pictures on social media of the parades happening around the island, and it’s made me soften my position…

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“We all look to the past and to the future to find ourselves,” wrote the late artist Isamu Noguchi. “Here, we find a hint that awakens us; there, a path that someone like us once walked.” It’s a quote returned to often by musician and composer Leilehua Lanzilotti, who grew up frequenting the same path Noguchi tread to construct his sculpture “Sky Gate” near Honolulu Hale, where Lanzilotti’s father worked for then-Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi.

This was long before she was formally introduced to the work of the prolific American sculptor, and just one of her formative experiences encountering art in outdoor spaces. Lanzilotti’s mother, who worked at the former Contemporary Museum of Honolulu, encouraged her to explore the museum’s fields and gardens, which were adorned with kinetic sculptures. “I loved being outdoors in the middle of all that art,” she recalls. “It was really influential to my way of thinking about art and music-making in a playful way.”

But the kind of mastery that Lanzilotti is known for also required structure. As a child she began studying under Hiroko Primrose, a “strict, old-school, and incredible” violin teacher, while also dancing in Hālau Hula O Maʻiki, an experience that provided her with an in-depth cultural education in Hawaiian language and music…

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Parents want to be more involved with the education system. That should be good news – in my experience, it’s difficult to get parents involved with their own kids’ homework, let alone participate in the macro-level planning of the Department of Education machine. But something about Civil Beat’s recent story gave me an uneasy feeling.

It’s a good overview that covers several angles of legitimate frustration. Schools feel overburdened and understaffed, under increasing pressure from all sides to do more work with less time. Parents are upset that communication from the DOE and Board of Education is inconsistent, needlessly difficult and unintelligibly hole-punched with acronyms. They feel left out of important decisions that directly impact their children, during one of the most precarious moments in modern American life. It’s easy to sympathize with them…

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