Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the entrepreneur, blogger and author who publishes the Daily Kos website, is now a homeowner in Berkeley, where the median price for homes is over half a million dollars. On behalf of the propertied class of Berkeley, I welcome him to the joys of home ownership. I can hardly wait until he gets his first property tax bill.

According to our hometown paper, the Berkeley Daily Planet (published twice a week, but hey, who's counting? Berkeley Biweekly Planet jsut doesn't cut it) Kos may already be joining the NIMBY ("not in my back yard") foes of further construction.

Moulitsas says the one political arena he hasn't followed closely is the Berkeley municipal scene—something that is changing because of a new development planned not far from his home at the Ashby BART station—a project that has raised his concern.

In no small part because of rent control and a difficult approval process for new construction, Berkeley is said to have a severe housing "shortage." I am not looking for nuance in Kos' understanding of what to do about it, but it will be interesting to watch.

I just hope he remembers to clean the gutters out. Happy homeownership, Markos!

Thomas Lifson   5 22 05