I finally read Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in December, and I came away impressed — not because I agreed with every implication, but because it may be the most original and consequential intervention the mainstream left has produced in years.
That originality is precisely why the book has generated so much pushback from progressives. Abundance does not begin where much of contemporary liberal politics begins.
It does not start with redistribution, moral signaling or identifying villains. It starts with a diagnosis: many of America’s most damaging crises are not the result of ignorance or inevitability, but of deliberate choices that constrain supply, slow delivery and fragment authority.
The authors’ thesis is disarmingly simple.
“To have the future we want,” they write, “we need to build and invent more of what we need.”
For a left that has spent decades focused on regulating markets and mitigating harm, that emphasis on building, capacity and throughput can feel jarring, even suspect. Yet it is precisely that reframing that gives the book its power.
Housing is where the argument lands first, and it is where the critique feels most urgent. The authors describe the housing crisis as the clearest example of what they call “chosen scarcities.”
For decades, home construction failed to keep pace with population growth, particularly in the most economically productive metropolitan regions. The result has not only been soaring housing costs, but a cascade of secondary crises: displacement, extreme commuting, labor shortages and homelessness concentrated in cities that drive the national economy.
The authors ground their argument in blunt comparative data showing just how far the United States has fallen behind peer nations in building housing.
“The average number of dwellings per thousand people in the developed world is about 470, according to the OECD,” they write. “France and Italy have nearly 600. Japan and Germany have about 500. The US has only about 425.” The shortfall is not mysterious or accidental. “Where did all the houses go?” they ask. “The answer is that they were never built at all.”
That national failure becomes starker when the comparison shifts from countries to states. Klein and Thompson describe Texas as “the single largest beneficiary of California’s housing crisis,” not because of climate or culture, but because of permitting and production.
“The Austin metro area led the nation in housing permits in 2022, permitting 18 new homes for every 1,000 residents,” they note. “Los Angeles’s and San Francisco’s metro areas permitted only 2.5 units per 1,000 residents.” The divergence reflects not demand, but policy choices.
Those choices have measurable human consequences.
“California has about 12 percent of the nation’s population, 30 percent of the nation’s homeless population, and about 50 percent of its unsheltered homeless population,” the authors write.
They argue that this outcome is not the product of unique social pathologies, but of housing scarcity layered atop economic dynamism.
Recent permitting data reinforces the pattern.
“In 2023, the San Francisco metro area issued about 7,500 new housing permits,” they report. “The Boston metro area issued 10,500. New York City, Newark, and Jersey City—together—issued slightly fewer than 40,000. The Houston metro area issued almost 70,000.” The result is not merely different skylines, but different affordability trajectories.
That divergence shows up directly in prices.
“In Houston, the median home costs a bit over $300,000 rather than a bit over $1.7 million in San Francisco,” Klein and Thompson write.
The contrast underscores their core contention: when housing supply is allowed to expand, affordability follows; when it is constrained, scarcity hardens into crisis.
This framing shifts the debate in an important way. Rather than treating high housing costs or homelessness as the product of individual failure or abstract market forces, Abundance centers structural supply constraints.
It also challenges a long-standing progressive reflex to rely on demand-side subsidies as a substitute for supply.
As the authors put it, “giving people a subsidy for a good whose supply is choked is like building a ladder to try to reach an elevator that is racing ever upward.”
That logic carries directly into the book’s treatment of homelessness.
Drawing on empirical research, Klein and Thompson argue that while addiction, mental illness and trauma matter at the individual level, they do not explain why homelessness varies so dramatically across regions.
What does track those differences, they argue, are rent levels and housing vacancy rates. In high-cost, low-vacancy markets, homelessness rises. In places where housing is cheaper and more plentiful, it does not.
For progressives, that conclusion is uncomfortable. It implies that years of well-intentioned policy in liberal jurisdictions — policy that failed to allow housing supply to expand — helped produce the very humanitarian crisis those policies were meant to prevent.
Where Abundance becomes truly controversial on the left is in its critique of progressive governance itself.
The book argues that American government, especially in blue states and cities, has become exceptionally good at stopping projects and exceptionally bad at delivering them. Environmental review, land-use regulation and administrative process — often created for legitimate reasons — have multiplied into a dense web of veto points that can delay or derail housing, transit and clean energy projects alike.
The authors introduce a phrase that captures this dynamic memorably: “everything-bagel liberalism.”
The everything bagel, they note, is excellent because it adds just enough of many ingredients.
Progressive governance, by contrast, often tries to load every project with every conceivable goal — affordability, climate mitigation, labor standards, racial equity, community input, historic preservation and more — without recognizing that piling on requirements can make projects slower, costlier or impossible to complete.
The result, they argue, is a grim irony. The jurisdictions that are most rhetorically committed to affordable housing, mass transit and clean energy are often the least capable of building them at scale.
California is a central example.
The book notes that liberals should be able to say, “Vote for us, and we will govern the country the way we govern California.”
Instead, conservatives can point to decades of failed housing production, spiraling homelessness and unfinished megaprojects as evidence of progressive incapacity.
This is not a conservative argument about shrinking government.
The authors explicitly reject the idea that government is inherently inefficient. Rather, they argue that progressive governance has become overly legalistic and procedural, designed more to prevent harm than to produce public goods. In their telling, this crisis of state capacity erodes public trust and ultimately feeds the very anti-government politics progressives oppose.
The argument extends well beyond housing. On climate, Abundance rejects degrowth as both politically implausible and morally inadequate.
Klein and Thompson argue that the only viable path to deep decarbonization while reducing global poverty is to invent and deploy clean energy that is plentiful and cheap. Scarcity-based climate politics, they warn, risks backlash and instability rather than durable progress.
The authors argue that scarcity is not just an economic condition but a political accelerant. “The politics of scarcity can be seductive,” they write. “When there is not enough to go around, we look with suspicion on anyone who might take what we have.” In that environment, housing shortages become not just a policy failure but a political weapon.
They point to how that dynamic played out in national politics.
“In the 2024 election, JD Vance spoke often of the inadequacy of housing supply, which he wielded as a cudgel against immigrants,” they write. “‘Illegal aliens competing with Americans for scarce homes is one of the most significant drivers of home prices in the country,’ he said in the vice presidential debate.”
They note that Donald Trump echoed the same frame, warning voters they “cannot ignore the impact that the flood of 21 million illegal aliens has had on driving up housing costs.”
Klein and Thompson emphasize that this rhetoric succeeds precisely because scarcity feels real. When housing is scarce, fear becomes easier to mobilize.
“Right-wing populism seeks power by closing doors, halting change, and venerating the businesses and dominance hierarchies of the past,” they write. “Scarcity is its handmaiden.” That scarcity, they argue, feeds the belief that government is weak and corrupt and that strongmen are needed to deliver on democracy’s failed promises.
But the authors do not reserve blame solely for the right.
“Liberals might detest the language that Trump and Vance use to demonize immigrants,” they write, “but blue America practices its own version of scarcity politics.”
They argue that zoning regulations in liberal states and cities that restrict housing supply “have increased costs far more than the recent influx of immigrants,” worsening an affordability crisis that the right was then able to exploit.
The consequences of those choices extend beyond housing markets.
“Thus, the mistakes of liberals contributed to the rise of illiberalism,” the authors conclude.
They cite Atlantic writer Jerusalem Demsas, who captured the deeper psychological dynamic: “The tendency to turn against outsiders in the face of critical shortages is not restricted to a basket of deplorables. It’s in all of us.”
As Demsas wrote, “Most people see others as a threat to their resources, whether it’s immigrants coming for your housing, yuppies pushing up rents, other students taking slots at all the good schools, or just more people on the road, adding to congestion.”
On science and technology, the book makes a parallel claim.
Government has historically been indispensable to innovation, from biomedical research to the technologies embedded in everyday consumer devices.
Yet modern research funding has become increasingly risk-averse, systematically penalizing novelty and rewarding incrementalism. The result is underinvestment in the breakthroughs that could meaningfully expand human well-being.
Klein and Thompson argue that sustaining scientific progress requires confronting a basic resource problem.
“If keeping up the pace of scientific progress demands more resources, it points to a clear solution: recruit more scientists and spend more money,” they write. “These aren’t bad ideas; they might be great ones.”
Yet the trend has moved in the opposite direction.
“As a share of the economy, government-funded R&D has declined in the last sixty years,” economist Heidi Williams said, a shift the authors argue has left the United States badly underinvested in basic research.
That underinvestment matters because scientific discovery has long been a central driver of economic growth and human well-being. If scientific spending is foundational to growth, the authors contend, the decline in public investment represents not fiscal prudence but a failure of national ambition, one that constrains future prosperity in much the same way housing scarcity constrains opportunity.
The book also emphasizes that American innovation has never been purely homegrown.
“Some of the greatest achievements in US history, including the Manhattan Project and the Apollo program, are impossible to imagine without the contribution of people who were born abroad,” said Jeremy Neufeld, a fellow at the Institute for Progress. Immigration, the authors argue, has functioned as a quiet but powerful engine of abundance.
The data underscores that point.
Despite making up only about 14 percent of the US population, immigrants accounted for “23 percent of US patents from 1990 to 2016, 38 percent of US Nobel Prizes in chemistry, medicine, and physics from 2000 to 2023, and more than half of the billion-dollar US start-ups in the last twenty years.”
These figures, the authors suggest, reflect not coincidence but systemic reliance on global talent.
Today, however, that pipeline is increasingly fragile.
“As immigration politics has been subsumed by debates about border control policies, the US has quietly made it harder for the typical foreign-born student to stay,” they write. “America has allowed wait times for green cards to lengthen, while the number of applicants stuck in immigration backlogs has gotten so large that some talented immigrants have stopped waiting and moved away.”
The consequences are already visible. “Since 2007, the share of international students on academic visas applying to stay and work in the US has declined by more than a third.” In the authors’ telling, this is scarcity politics applied to innovation itself: constraining the very inputs — people, ideas and investment — that made past American abundance possible.
Throughout the book, abundance is not presented as a fetish for consumption. It is framed as a moral and political condition. When societies fail to build enough housing, energy and infrastructure, scarcity politics take hold. Blame replaces problem-solving. Immigrants, the poor and the marginalized are cast as competitors for goods that should not have been scarce to begin with.
That is why Abundance matters even — and perhaps especially — where progressives disagree with it. Conservatives have largely removed themselves from serious engagement with these questions by bowing to Trumpism and grievance politics. The debate over whether liberal governance can still build and deliver therefore belongs, by default, within the left and center-left coalition.
Progressives do not have to accept every prescription in Abundance to grapple with its critique. But dismissing it outright would be a mistake. Housing alone demands a rethinking of supply, regulation and state capacity. The broader argument — that justice depends not only on intentions and safeguards, but on the ability to build — is more unsettling, and more consequential, than many on the left are yet prepared to admit.
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So are you ready to admit the failures of the housing policies you have supported for decades; local control, direct democracy and process over production? Last I heard you were still clinging to some sort of mend it don’t end it Measure J reboot.
The sad part of this locally is the naysayers trying to reinvent other people’s projects instead of advocating for more projects to meet the needs of more people.
Just building more of what got us into this mess in the first place isn’t a solution We need to require housing to be designed to reduced environmental impacts and to be affordable to our workforce in Davis. The developers will still make millions of dollars: developed urban land in Davis is worth about $1.75 million per acre and infrastructure development costs are at most $200,000 per acre, so they stand to make a profit of $1.5 million per acre. (The actual builders will buy that land and then incur the cost of construction.) It is financially feasible to ask developers to build housing that better conforms with our city’s objectives–we don’t need to just cave to developers who have an incentive to distort their interests.
Yours is the scarcity mindset. That we should only build one kind of thing. Mine is the abundance mindset. I say build this and then build some more. By providing abundant housing more people will be housed.
Build, build, build more big expensive houses.
There are lots of future Bay Area transplants who want to move to Davis.
That’s Davis’ job, KO! Pretend the meth/fent addicts will emerge from the drainage canals and move into Village Homes, but the real mission from the developer industrial complex overlords is to maximize their profits, so we take it those with money from the Bay Area moving here, and get a little gold star from Mr. Weiner for going along with the ‘affordable housing’ charade by funneling off some little percentage and meanwhile a few of the meth//fent addicts get a room where they can do their addiction in a warm place and kill themselves a little faster, but only if the rules allow one housing without abstinence.
The weird bigotry against people from the Bay Area continues, I see.
I don’t understand your comment, DS, or you don’t understand mine. How is ‘bay area people’ bigotry? I am one, if you count the Stone Age (or should I say the Orchard Age). My comment was about how the belief as presented is housing is going to take homeless off the street and provide work force housing for blue collar persons, when in reality the most profitable target consumer is always the one with money. So if you build a new housing project, the primary target is people in the Bay Area who can live a cheaper life by moving to Davis, even if they buy new. Maximizing profits by going after the money. There may be some ‘trickle up’ leaving some lower-level housing more available, but the degree of that is I’d guess minimal. One could model it by using Cannery as an example. Clearly with all the new housing overall, vacancy rates have gone up in Davis resulting in less pressure on rents to increase.
“Build, build, build more big expensive houses.
There are lots of future Bay Area transplants who want to move to Davis.”
Don: That’s not bias, per se.
It’s reportedly not the “goal” to house people from the Bay Area. (Too late for that, however.)
What they actually need are more laws to ensure that newcomers to a given area are actually from the area, have the right/preferred skin color in the name of equity, etc.
Or, they can ineffectively try to design housing that will only be occupied by their preferred groups, and “hope for the best”. (That more “passive” and legal approach seems to be the one advocated for by some commenters and city officials.)
:-)
“The weird bigotry against people from the Bay Area continues, I see.”
What a “weird” thing to say.
The concept of “abundance” is essentially the same thing as consumerism and endless growth (both in population and economy) all of which are leading to the destruction of the habitability of the earth itself – and not just for humans.
Abundance is not a new concept at all – it’s the same thing that’s always been pushed (from the opposite side of the political spectrum).
As far as Bay Area transplants, they probably already comprise half of the population of the region. Since Davis is a college town, it probably attracts somewhat more environmentally-minded transplants from the Bay Area.
There’s still some residual “counter-cultural” aspects to Davis (the Domes on campus, the fossils like me wandering through the Co-Op), though it doesn’t appear that Davis was ever fully on board with that movement.
If you want to help the environment – do less; not more. Abundance is killing the planet.
Actually abundance refers to the capacity to meet human needs reliably and equitably without artificial scarcity.
There’s a lot to unpack in that claim.
They probably could use some infrastructure in Ethiopia (and throughout Africa), however. Not so much in regard to the cell phone /avocado toast generation in the US., who are in line to inherit their parents’ wealth (and aren’t even having kids of their own).
Maybe you should actually read the book. The core abundance literature explicitly integrates climate change and environmental limits, rather than ignoring or dismissing them. The authors are not arguing for limitless consumption but instead are arguing that scarcity politics is a poor—and often counterproductive—response to ecological crisis.
There’s a larger false narrative (outside of that book) that climate change, species extinction, loss of habitat, etc., can be addressed by driving electric cars – so to speak.
There is ultimately only one way to ensure long-term habitability on the planet, and that’s to maintain a stable population and to stop pursuing more crap we don’t need.
How many housing units in the U.S. aren’t even primary residences, nor are rented out? The answer to that might show more of a “wealth gap”, than a fake shortage.
You already know that there’s a university study which shows there isn’t a housing shortage, and that was from several years ago (before probably hundreds of thousands of additional housing units were built despite a population that essentially isn’t increasing).
The abundance framework explicitly rejects the idea that climate and ecological collapse can be solved through isolated consumer substitutions—such as simply replacing gas cars with electric ones while leaving land use, energy systems, and political economy unchanged. In fact, the authors repeatedly argue against precisely that kind of techno-consumerist minimalism.
Sounds like the authors would be fans of preserving farmland, then. And to cease pursuing car-dependent sprawl in general.
Have they weighed in on California Forever? What would he think of Lagoon Valley, Vacaville, Natomas, Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, Roseville, Folsom, etc.?
And how does the author feel about pursuing sprawl to support “abundantly-sized” school districts?
Maybe I should read that book, sometime after I get-around to reading “White Fragility”.
The problem with trying to argue without an understanding of the material, is that you comments are just flat out wrong.
The abundance authors are not saying “we like density and farmland preservation.”
They are arguing:
• Farmland loss is a direct consequence of housing scarcity, not abundance. When cities refuse to build infill housing at scale, growth is displaced outward. Sprawl is the scarcity outcome, not the abundance outcome.
• Car dependence is an infrastructure failure, not a consumer choice. Abundance arguments target the regulatory and political barriers that prevent dense housing, mixed-use neighborhoods, and mass transit from being built.
• Abundance is spatial efficiency. Dense housing near jobs reduces land consumption, emissions, infrastructure costs, and habitat loss simultaneously. That is why abundance is framed as an environmental strategy, not merely an economic one.
O.K. – thanks.
There’s still some problems with this. For one thing, it’s STILL assuming that endless growth is sustainable. Infill/smart growth ultimately cannot accommodate endless growth, either. It will still run up against practical limits, and it will always be more expensive.
The other problem “is” consumer choice – despite what the authors claim. And there’s plenty of developers and their political supporters willing to provide it.
Turns out that people don’t like living in 19th century New York city (crowded, expensive slums). Actually, it seems like we may be entering an era like that again – the “working poor”.
But from what you’re saying here, it seems like the author is arguing AGAINST “abundance”. Pack ’em and stack ’em – despite what they’d prefer.
The entire country (the vast development occurring in this area, and in other parts such as the southern states) is going in the exact opposite direction (sprawl).
And yet, the population isn’t really growing.
Ron, you are still attributing to the authors a premise they explicitly reject: that abundance equals or requires endless growth.
The abundance argument does not rest on the assumption that growth is infinite or that cities must expand without bound. It rests on a very different, and much narrower, claim: Human need is finite; artificial scarcity is not inevitable.
O.K. – but it seems to me that the growth monkey/YIMBYs have latched onto this as their new bible. And yet, they’re anything “but” what you’re claiming this book is about.
“Human need is finite; artificial scarcity is not inevitable.”
A lot to unpack just in that claim alone – it has no meaning by itself. Maybe try comparing the people in Ethiopia or Somalia with the avocado toast crowd here. The ones trying to make a living as a barista (after graduating) with student loan debt, who insist on living in San Francisco (while waiting to inherit a significant sum of money from their parents).
Or, compare it to the billionaires in that same city – who want to build another city in the Suisun area.
Some YIMBYs may misuse the language, but that doesn’t define the argument. But doesn’t that make it all the more imperative to actually understand the article rather than debating air?
That ‘Human need is finite’ doesn’t mean luxury is limitless — it means there is a morally defensible threshold beyond which deprivation is unjustifiable.
Pointing to global famine doesn’t refute that claim but it does demonstrate how politically produced scarcity operates.
I just recalled that 48 Hills has a critique regarding “Abundance”:
“The hot new book ‘Abundance’ is just more neoliberal tech bro porn”
https://48hills.org/2025/04/the-hot-new-book-abundance-is-just-more-neoliberal-tech-bro-porn/
David, maybe you should read that before hitching your wagon to it.
By not reading it for yourself, you are relying on Tim Redmond and I to mediate the meaning to you and you to parse between the two rather than come up with your own unique takes.
Probably better than relying on you to mediate the meaning.
Again, I’m mostly looking at how this book is being used (politically). It’s the YIMBY bible. So if you’re going to refer to it, so can others.
Here’s one passage from 48 Hills:
“But they also follow what has become the mantra of the new centrist Democrats: Limiting or abolishing old-fashioned regulations, like the California Environmental Quality Act, will be the key to building and Abundance society.”
“They don’t discuss at all the crisis of economic inequality, or the need for taxation policies that reduce it. They just assume that our current economic system, with fewer barriers, more government support for scientific research, and less bureaucracy to slow down research grants will inevitably lead to a better future.”
Since I haven’t read it, what does the author propose to do about developers continuing to offer sprawl as an alternative to living in crowded, expensive cities? Does he just believe that prices (e.g., at the 25 story building being proposed in the Marina district in S.F.) will be “so cheap” that people will stop seeking housing in suburbs – even as developers and their political allies continue to build it? And does he believe that this won’t result in gentrification?
If he (and the YIMBYs) are not addressing that, they already have no credibility.
Maybe, but I think Tim gets much of this wrong.
Tim Redmond is right that Abundance has drawn criticism from the left, particularly for giving more attention to deregulation and state capacity than to redistribution or structural inequality, and he is correct that the book emphasizes reducing regulatory barriers and adopts an optimistic, future-oriented tone.
What the authors do — explicitly — is offer abundance as an alternative political strategy to redistribution-first liberalism, not as a denial of inequality or injustice, but as a critique of redistribution as the primary or sufficient tool for improving material conditions.
Where he goes wrong is in framing the book as neoliberal “tech bro” ideology: Klein and Thompson do not argue for laissez-faire markets or tech fixes alone, but for active government, public investment, and institutional reform to deliver housing, infrastructure, and climate goals at scale.
Klein and Thompson argue that abundance is impossible without strong, competent, and democratic government. Their critique is not of government itself, but of government that is procedurally clogged, risk-averse, and incapable of executing large public projects. The book is a call for state capacity, not market withdrawal.
Redmond also miscasts the authors as dismissive of environmental constraints and redistribution, conflates their argument with green consumerism, and overstates claims about profit sharing and innovation while ignoring the book’s core insistence on state capacity rather than market fundamentalism.
In short, Tim doesn’t really do justice to the book as written. His critique treats Abundance as a stand-in for neoliberal growth ideology and tech-consumerism, when the authors are explicitly arguing for strong state capacity, public investment, and effective government as alternatives to both austerity and redistribution-only politics.
Even where his concerns about inequality and misuse of the rhetoric are valid, his rendering collapses the authors’ actual argument into a caricature that sidesteps their central claim: that liberal goals are failing not because government does too much, but because it no longer works well enough to deliver material outcomes.
You’re not actually addressing the question I posed above (regarding developers and political systems continuing to offer sprawl as an alternative), nor are you answering the question regarding displacement resulting from gentrification.
Again, is the premise that deregulation will result in housing that’s “so cheap” in San Francisco, for example, that no one in the neighborhood will be displaced by a 25 story apartment building that’s replacing the Safeway in the Marina district? And that life will be so good there, that no one will seek housing in the suburbs, as a result?
This is also where the YIMBYs fail. They’re “all on board” with densifying cities, but only “crickets” regarding displacement and sprawl (if not outright support – such as California Forever). For that matter, when was the last time they objected to ANY sprawling housing development?
Name just one that they objected to.
One only has to look at who is funding them to see the reason for that.
Nor do they ever look at the cause of demand. (Again, one only has to look at how they’re funded to see the reason for that, as well.)
Also, how do they feel about the fact that the population is essentially no longer growing?
No one is claiming deregulation alone makes neighborhoods displacement-proof. The abundance argument is that scarcity guarantees displacement and sprawl, while large-scale, citywide supply—paired with tenant protections—reduces them over time. Developers pursue sprawl because cities refuse to build, not because abundance drives it. Critiquing some YIMBY groups for ignoring displacement is fair, but it’s not a critique of the book, which explicitly argues for strong government and complementary policy.
Or maybe the key takeaway for you: The outcomes you’re worried about—displacement, gentrification, and sprawl—aren’t the result of risks of abundance, but rather are the guaranteed outcomes of scarcity.
“Developers pursue sprawl because cities refuse to build, not because abundance drives it.”
This is a fundamentally-incorrect assumption regarding the reason that developers pursue sprawl, and the reason that it appeals to those seeking housing.
As already noted, infill housing is ALWAYS more expensive and difficult to accomplish. It’s the reason that Hong Kong is expensive. Are there NIMBYs in Hong Kong pushing up the cost of housing? How about Manhattan – lots of people there, objecting to high-rise penthouses?
If that’s what the book is based upon, the entire premise is faulty. And again, this is closely aligned with what the YIMBYs push.
Worse still – they already know this – it’s common sense.
Let me know when a house in San Francisco is as cheap as one in Natomas. Apparently, there’s still lots of regulations to undo, in San Francisco (per this argument).
No one is arguing that infill is cheaper than sprawl or that SF will ever be as cheap as Natomas. The claim is that scarcity guarantees higher prices, displacement, and exported sprawl, while permitting infill reduces those harms relative to doing nothing. The choice isn’t cheap infill versus cheap sprawl; it’s managed abundance versus guaranteed scarcity outcomes.
Already provided the reasons that this argument has no credibility. But more importantly, the “silence” regarding sprawl also exposes this type of claim for what it is.
I recently mentioned that I watched a well-produced PBS program within the past couple of weeks, which showed that the people who are most concerned about “infill” in New York are low/moderate income people who are worried about being priced out (or directly displaced).
The program included specific examples of this.
Part of the program dealt with a small-time investor – a woman of “color” (for what that’s worth) who essentially got scammed out of ownership of her own building and no longer lives there. But most of the program dealt with the concerns of renters, themselves. These people were not supportive of “infill” of the type that’s occurring, and they certainly weren’t “NIMBYs”.
Ron O
First Tim Redmond is far from a credible commentator. I’ve been reading his misinformation for almost 50 years. The Bay Guardian would take a valid observation and run with it down into the worst rabbit holes. Redmond hurt much more than helped San Francisco’s attempts at municipalizing its electricity system through those errors. David’s objections to Redmond’s analysis is valid.
Second you advocate for infill rather than sprawl but then you raise the example on NYC where locals are objecting to infill. Which is it? As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, changes in population growth which won’t have an impact for decades from now (if ever) is irrelevant to this discussion–high prices is the indicative statistic of shortage.
This may be the article you’re referencing on whether a shortage exists: https://www.aau.edu/research-scholarship/featured-research-topics/study-finds-us-does-not-have-housing-shortage
This Brookings report issued subsequently is more comprehensive and looks to multiple sources that come to different conclusions: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/make-it-count-measuring-our-housing-supply-shortage/. I’ve noted previously, the average household size in California increased 10% (from 2.9 to 3.2) from 2010 to 2020 despite a decrease in the number of children, indicating that there was insufficient housing in locations where its needed. What’s happening most likely is that housing is being left vacant in places where jobs are leaving, consistent with the fact that people move to jobs, not that jobs move to people.
“Second you advocate for infill rather than sprawl but then you raise the example on NYC where locals are objecting to infill. Which is it?”
It’s both that create problems, apparently. I was just noting what was in that PBS documentary in regard to what’s happening in the New York area, so maybe take it up with the people who are getting “gentrified out” of there.
Maybe if we all stopped shouting “housing crisis”, it wouldn’t provide opportunities for vested interests to create them, in a fake attempt to “solve” them.
When did I ever advocate for infill?
“As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, changes in population growth which won’t have an impact for decades from now (if ever) is irrelevant to this discussion–high prices is the indicative statistic of shortage.”
High prices are relative. But they are dropping in a lot of areas (including this area), so it’s probably time to start tearing down some houses.
In regard to Tim Redmond, are you claiming that he’s any less credible than David or you? If you’re going to critique what someone writes, you’d have more credibility if you actually focused on what they write, rather than your general opinion of the individual.
” It also challenges a long-standing progressive reflex to rely on demand-side subsidies as a substitute for supply . . . . “giving people a subsidy for a good whose supply is choked is like building a ladder to try to reach an elevator that is racing ever upward.” ”
I have been saying that basic concept here and at City Council meeting for at least a decade, and this is the first time anyone has acknowledged this economic reality. The reality is this raises prices for everyone, and the only beneficiary are the lottery-few who win subsidized housing, and the losers are the working-poor just above the eligibility line who end up paying more (or not affording at all).
Hopefully you’ll soon come to understand the parallel fallacy of the Homeless Industrial Complex — that ends up creating ever more street homeless.
If they actually wanted to address the “demand side”, they’ likely look at what causes demand in a given locale (e.g., Google, Facebook, the AI industry, etc.).
Then again, those are the primary type of industries that support the YIMBYs in the first place (so don’t hold your breath).
Maybe the YIMBY-supported California Forever will solve the fake housing crisis.
David, I appreciate your thoughtful review of the book, and now plan to read it pronto. I find many of the arguments as you presented them to be compelling, and am a bit disturbed that people are so enamored of left wing orthodoxy that they attack the book before reading it. FDR’s New Deal certainly can’t be argued to have been against redistribution and progressive taxation, yet it was able to proceed with projects that would be extremely difficult or impossible today. Davis seems to be an example of a location where we are anxious to preserve a certain way of life for the “haves”, while restricting the infrastructure to limit affordability for the people who work in the nonprofessional, support jobs. Dismissing the next generations housing challenges by saying that they will inherit generational wealth casually disregards the income and wealth inequalities increasing in our country, and helps to continue the poverty and homelessness we wish to reduce. Thanks for the timely and thought provoking review.
The “have nots” are the ones who object to the displacement caused by this type of corporate-supported YIMBY philosophy.
Perhaps (in addition to reading the YIMBY bible) you should watch this PBS-produced program before arriving at your conclusions. Pretty sure that these people are not benefiting from the “abundance” of high-rise residential construction in New York.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvR7DaC0I-M
Ron, you are once again pointing to real harm, but drawing the wrong causal conclusion from it. No one disputes that low-income tenants in New York have experienced displacement amid waves of luxury construction. The mistake is assuming that this outcome demonstrates a failure of “abundance,” rather than a failure of partial, unequal, and poorly governed growth under scarcity.
“Partial, unequal, and poorly governed growth under scarcity”.
That’s quite a mouthful of word salad.
It’s certainly “unequal”, though. That’s always the outcome – especially in major cities like New York.
Then again, no one is forcing “poor” people to live there. If you look at the PBS documentary I provided a link to, the first thing I ask is why those people continue to try to live there. (Many of them immigrants, so I guess we’ll see what subsequent generations do.)
Moving from the Bay Area was one of the best decisions I ever made, and I suspect that half the people in Davis would tell you the same thing.
But Davis is no longer the place to start out for most people. It was at one time – not so long ago.
I essentially “started out” in Davis (not that long ago), but that particular door is closed.
Truth be told, I never wanted to end up in this area in the first place, though. Davis is (still) nice for a valley town, but that’s about it.
You’re weaving in circles here. If the answer is that working-class and immigrant residents should simply leave expensive cities, you’re simply conceding the problem of scarcity. In fact, I would argue if that’s your solution then displacement isn’t a bug—it’s the policy outcome. That may be a defensible position, but it concedes that scarcity sorts people by income and exports sprawl. The abundance argument exists precisely because cities like Davis used to be places to start out, and scarcity closed that door.
I’m gathering that there’s a difference between a place like New York, vs. Davis in regard to what the “Abundance” writer is referring to.
No amount of “abundance” is going to make places like New York (or San Francisco) “cheap”. Those places have been attracting immigrants for at least 150 years.
Regarding Davis, it certainly could pursue sprawl. But I would argue that the sprawl that’s occurring 7 miles north of Davis is already mediating prices in Davis (as much as Covell Village would, for example).
But Davis will always be more expensive than surrounding cities. (In fact, it’s been shown that this has been the case even before Measure J. It was also the case (perhaps even more so) after The Cannery was built.
Ultimately, it’s the same reason that Daly City is cheaper than San Francisco, as well as the reason that prices aren’t the same WITHIN a given city. Some of the railroad barons were living on Nob Hill (and not in the Mission district), after they figured out that Sacramento sucks. Some of them then moved down to the peninsula, perhaps after they got tired of the riff-raff that managed to walk up Nob Hill. (Or, after the earthquake and fire forced them to do so.)
Bottom line is that some places are more-expensive than others. And if the locals in Silicon Valley want a cup of coffee served by under-employed baristas who insist upon living there, then let them pay $20 for a cup of coffee – they can afford it.
But at the risk of exceeding a “comment limit”, it seems increasingly-likely that high-cost cities won’t need the services of low-wage workers, due to AI, self-checkout, driverless deliveries, etc.
Other than skilled blue collar workers, who will happily live in Woodland/Daly City/South San Francisco. Or the owners of those type of companies, who are (more often-than not) far better off than their own workers or someone who graduated with a liberal arts degree.
Woodland is already Davis’ “Industrial City” (reference to that concrete sign I saw since I was a kid on periodic trips to/from the peninsula) – well before anyone heard of “NIMBY”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_San_Francisco_hillside_sign
I’ve always had a certain amount of respect for those who actually do something of value for society – and that includes those who can actually build housing, rather than sue cities that they’re not happy with in regard to that.
The truly “smart” people (whether blue collar or white collar) aren’t waiting around for someone to build them a cheap house. They took action a long time ago, to maximize their own outcomes – and are continuing to do so.
Ron O
Your line of reasoning is so speculative. Whether AI delivers promoted benefits is deeply unknown. Currently Davis is not housing 17,000 workers who commute into town, about 5,000 more than in 2007, and 17,000 residents are commuting out of town. This is imbalance is the source of both our traffic woes and the loss of community. This is the housing gap that we are trying to fill. There’s no evidence yet that those 17,000 jobs are disappearing soon so we need to meet that need.
I find the popularity of abundance now that these democrat journalists have written a book amusing. Ten years ago a guy from a local developer’s family described Davis to me as a place of abundance with a scarcity mind set.
That truth still remains here today in Davis. Yet it seems it is the younger generations, who are inflicting the scarcity upon themselves, by opposing projects that do not meet their vision instead of advocating for more projects in addition to those already in the pipeline, that do meet that vision.
Saying we can’t do both is the scarcity mindset. Saying we can do both is the abundance mindset. I’m in the optimistic, yes we can do both mindset, that will allow abundance to flourish here in Davis.
To follow up, here’s a relevant study that contradicts the “build anything” mindset:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08854122231166961
Zoning Change: Upzonings, Downzonings, and Their Impacts on Residential Construction, Housing Costs, and Neighborhood Demographics
Research on regional upzoning impacts is nascent but outcomes appear positive. Downzonings limit construction and worsen affordability. (Upzoning is increased density; downzoning is more single family housing.)
Some of you could actually read the book.
I personally plan to do so, right after I read White Fragility (as noted earlier). Unfortunately, I already saw Matt Walsh embarrass the author of the latter (causing her to voluntarily provide whatever she had on her possession to Matt Walsh’s “person of color” staff member as a “reparation”). There is no way to maintain credibility after something like that, and it was truly an ingenuous way to destroy it.
In the meantime, there’s nothing to prevent discussion of what David (or Tim Redmond) presents regarding the YIMBY bible. They’ve both apparently read it.
Why keep bringing up a book I recommended five years and 600 books ago?
600 books?
How about that link to the PBS video I posted – have you seen that?
I will say this, however: I’m o.k. with “scarcity” (whatever that means) resulting in less people moving to a given area, even if it means housing prices that would otherwise be lower. And even if it means I’ll never move to that area.
This is why I’m just fine with Atherton, Palo Alto, all of Marin, Jackson Hole, etc.
I’m also fine with being priced out of my original home town (good riddance). But again, this is the result of the pursuit of additional/changing business in a community that was already developed. The house where I “originate” from is still there, but it’s beyond my reach. And truth be told, I always wished that I lived somewhere less intense, when I was growing up. Perhaps even (gasp) less “diverse” (not in regard to skin color, but common goals/background). And perhaps a few less drugged-out bums trying to break into the backyard, or people having sex in the park across the street at night.
Ultimately, businesses themselves will “adjust” to some degree in regard to housing prices (e.g., the California Exodus). Though in some areas (e.g., Silicon Valley, Manhattan, Hong Kong), it sometimes means that only the wealthy will be there (for work, business, or living).
If there was only one house in the entirety of California, there wouldn’t be 40 million people living in it – nor would it be worth a trillion dollars. Nor would there be a Silicon Valley, etc. (for what that’s worth).
Ron, you’re saying that you are comfortable with scarcity as a population-control mechanism, even if it produces higher prices, exclusion, and displacement. The problem is that’s not just generating things I don’t want, it’s also generating things you claim to not want. In short, you are endorsing scarcity as a tool to limit who moves to a place, while simultaneously objecting to the downstream outcomes that scarcity necessarily produces. Those two positions cannot both hold.
One time – in our own driveway. (We were near the Castro district). And by driveway, I mean IN the driveway, not in the street blocking it. At which point I’m wondering if there’s somewhere a little more like Mayberry.
Then there was the kids from the Fillmore district (when I was younger and before it was almost totally razed), venturing up into the neighborhood for the sole purpose of causing trouble (robbing/assaulting the “white” kids in another park).
That continued into the well-regarded school and public transit system, well-beyond the time that the Fillmore was razed.
Why would anyone pay “extra” for that privilege?
Of course, the only people that were ticketed were “us”, when our vehicles in the driveway hung over the 10 foot-wide sidewalk by maybe 2 feet. That is, when they weren’t getting hit or broken into when parked on the street (two of my vehicles were stolen).
Oh, and then (by the time I was working downtown), there was the underground light rail system, which “somehow” got totally backed up near the end of the line (downtown) almost every day, despite that system being in total control of everything underground in the first place. Resulting in a trip that should have taken 10 minutes (from the place of boarding – which was already a 15 minute walk from my home) lasting another half-hour.
Yeap – I miss that place. Though at least it wasn’t totally Manhattanized at that point. Pretty sure we’ve all heard about the lovely experiences on their (New York’s) subway system.
And yet, you (and the author) actually question why people prefer the suburbs? You think that building more Trump Towers is going to result in equity?
“Ron, you’re saying that you are comfortable with scarcity as a population-control mechanism, even if it produces higher prices, exclusion, and displacement.”
Pretty much. That’s how it HAS to work in our system, if there’s an underlying demand. And if Tiburon is too expensive for me, so be it.
You seem to be claiming that prices “should”‘ be the same everywhere. That’s not how anything in our system works. More-desirable areas are essentially similar to “luxury goods”.
Now, we could address the actual driver of demand for a given area, but that’s not something that the YIMBYs want to discuss (jobs, economic development).
“The problem is that’s not just generating things I don’t want, it’s also generating things you claim to not want. In short, you are endorsing scarcity as a tool to limit who moves to a place, while simultaneously objecting to the downstream outcomes that scarcity necessarily produces. Those two positions cannot both hold.”
You and I have both noted that high prices (not just for housing, but for food, college degrees and associated debt, utilities – and everything else in comparison to wages) are a likely contributing factor in decisions regarding family size. Most of this has to do with general inflation, since the pandemic.
So if costs in general are reducing family size, then that’s the outcome “I”, you, and the planet need.
You pick out housing, but there’s other categories of costs that have been rising faster.
If housing costs remain flat or decline, they’re actually declining faster than all other goods and services that are still rising. (And housing costs have been going down.)
There does appear to be an increasing wealth gap in this country, but the basis for that is not housing costs.
Ron, I’ve engaged because I find this discussion fascinating (albeit frustrating because you are intentionally limiting yourself by not actually reading the text).
What you are describing is not merely acceptance of market outcomes but rather an explicit endorsement of scarcity as a population-sorting mechanism.
The issue here however is not whether prices vary by desirability but whether deliberately constraining supply in high-demand regions is a legitimate way to decide who gets to live where and under what conditions.
Once scarcity is framed as a filtering tool rather than an unfortunate byproduct, several problems emerge.
First, this is not a neutral market process. Scarcity in places like Tiburon, Davis, San Francisco, or coastal job centers is not the result of natural limits alone. It is largely the product of zoning choices, growth caps, voter-imposed constraints, and procedural barriers. When government actively restricts supply in the face of strong demand, the resulting prices are not simply “how the system works”—they are policy outcomes. Calling those outcomes inevitable does not make them apolitical.
Second, your analogy to luxury goods fails in a crucial respect that housing is not a discretionary consumption good. It is a prerequisite for participation in the labor market, family formation, education, and civic life. Treating access to opportunity-rich regions as analogous to access to a luxury watch or sports car effectively concedes that geography itself should be stratified by income. That’s problematic and if you want we can explore in more detail why.
Third—and most importantly—YOUR position collapses under its own internal logic when you object to downstream effects that you otherwise acknowledge as unavoidable. If scarcity raises prices, and high prices produce displacement, segregation, longer commutes, sprawl, and declining family formation, then endorsing scarcity means endorsing those outcomes. One cannot simultaneously defend scarcity as necessary and reject the consequences that scarcity predictably produces.
This leads directly to the population argument.
You essentially that reduced family size resulting from high costs is a positive outcome “for the planet.” That is a serious claim, and it deserves to be stated plainly: you are arguing for cost pressure as an indirect form of population control.
The problem is this mechanism does not reduce consumption evenly, nor does it target the highest emitters. It primarily suppresses family formation among young, working-class, and middle-income households—while wealthier households remain insulated.
The result is not sustainable population management but class-based demographic sorting.
Moreover, this logic proves too much. If high costs are good because they reduce fertility, then rising costs of food, education, utilities, and health care would also be desirable.
The problem with that is that it is an argument against affordability itself. That’s untenable.
At that point, the disagreement is no longer about YIMBYism versus NIMBYism; it is about whether economic hardship is an acceptable policy lever to achieve social or environmental goals. I would argue it’s not – I’d like to your argument to the contrary.
Finally, the claim that YIMBYs refuse to discuss jobs and economic development is simply false. The entire premise of housing supply reform is that people move toward jobs, not abstract “desirable areas.”
Constraining housing in job-rich regions does not reduce demand—it displaces it geographically, exporting workers to longer commutes, higher emissions, and fragmented communities.
Scarcity does not eliminate growth but rather reorganizes it in more destructive ways.
So the real disagreement here is not about whether prices vary by place. Everyone agrees they do.
The disagreement is about whether we should intentionally use housing scarcity to decide who gets access to opportunity, and whether we are willing to own the full moral and social consequences of that choice.
You are getting closer than most to saying the quiet part out loud.
The problem is that once it is said plainly, it becomes very difficult to defend without embracing outcomes that even you appear uncomfortable with.
And all of this from not actually reading the text, you’ve pretty much collapsed your own argument.
“The issue here however is not whether prices vary by desirability but whether deliberately constraining supply in high-demand regions is a legitimate way to decide who gets to live where and under what conditions.”
That’s the same thing – no difference. One of (but not the only) the aspects of “desirability” is proximity to employment centers. And since it costs more to redevelop existing areas (to accommodate expansion of economic development), that fact alone is going to ensure that they cost more. That’s not a “decision” that anyone makes – it’s just a reality of the way the market works.
“First, this is not a neutral market process. Scarcity in places like Tiburon, Davis, San Francisco, or coastal job centers is not the result of natural limits alone. It is largely the product of zoning choices, growth caps, voter-imposed constraints, and procedural barriers. When government actively restricts supply in the face of strong demand, the resulting prices are not simply “how the system works”—they are policy outcomes. Calling those outcomes inevitable does not make them apolitical.
True – it’s not just the fact that redevelopment costs more. But one of the things that occurs when Tiburon decides that it doesn’t want to become like San Jose is that jobs/economic development itself is curtailed. There aren’t a lot of high-paying jobs in Marin county, and I’m sure that you’ve heard of the exodus of companies (and mass layoffs) in places like San Francisco and Silicon Valley. San Francisco might be recovering now to some degree (due to the AI industry), but it’s the high compensation from that industry which is creating inequity.
Some flunky working at a fast food restaurant isn’t going to be able to compete against someone associated with the AI industry when both are trying to live on the same block. The laws of physics itself will ensure that’s the case.
“The disagreement is about whether we should intentionally use housing scarcity to decide who gets access to opportunity, and whether we are willing to own the full moral and social consequences of that choice.”
I already DO accept it – I have no choice. But if you want to talk about “opportunity”, why is it that some populations already live in or very near “high opportunity areas”, but somehow consistently get left behind? See that video I posted regarding those in New York, if you want to see an example of that.
As far as commuting is concerned, telecommuting is having a big impact on that. In addition, lots of low-end (and middle income) jobs are being entirely eliminated due to AI, driverless vehicles and other technologies.
And yes, I’m fine with not being able to live in Tiburon, much as I’d prefer it. And no, I don’t want them to change for the likes of “me”. Unlike you (I guess), I don’t view that as a moral calamity. This seems to be the fundamental difference between you and me, regarding this issue.
I value Marin the way it is, but you don’t because you think that it’s unfair that not everyone can live there.
“But one of the things that occurs when Tiburon decides that it doesn’t want to become like San Jose is that jobs/economic development itself is curtailed.”
(Just noticed – in my own comment, that pursuit of sprawl apparently isn’t resulting in cheap housing in places like San Jose, regardless. And the reason for that is because they pursue economic development more than Marin does.)
I don’ know which community is more expensive, but I do know which one decided not to pursue sprawl or economic development to the same degree.) Of course, Marin is closer to San Francisco, so that has an impact.
Overall, I find it fascinating that the underlying basis of what David prefers is the elimination of competition. And yet, competition (for jobs, housing, mates, etc.) is exactly the way our system works.
It could be pointed out that anyone who isn’t happy with that situation could voluntarily give up those things, so that some poor unfortunate schmuck has a better chance. Maybe start by selling your house for half its current market value, if you’re not actively employed in a given area.
Perhaps rather than seeking the highest price (for your own benefit), maybe you should seek out the lowest price. Tell your employer to cut your pay in half, as well.
Important to note: Abundance is not the elimination of competition. It is the elimination of artificial scarcity. Those are categorically different concepts, and collapsing them allows the argument to evade the real policy question. Competition does not disappear when supply increases rather it changes form.
Competition ensures that scarcity exists, and will continue to exist.
As I stated, a local barista isn’t going to be able to live on the same block as the owners of Google (or their workers), regardless of how many high rises are built. The laws of physics themselves prevent this.
And the ultra-wealthy simply aren’t going to allow that, regardless. (I actually agree with YIMBY Law, regarding the probable reason that Newsom suspended SB-9 in Pacific Palisades.)
Regarding the latter, you seem to think you can change human nature. We’re actually no different than two cats fighting over the best spot in the house, despite how some think we “should” be.
But ultimately, the “best spot” can change over time, as we’ve seen with the California Exodus. So as it turns out, there’s more than one spot for a cat or human.
I think the difference is ***artificial*** scarcity
“Artificial” is a concept.
And failure to examine how people (including businesses) look at alternatives is also an artificial way to look at this. That’s why so many people from the Bay Area ended up in the Sacramento region (including Davis). That’s the ACTUAL reality, that the “artificial scarcity” claim never mentions.
This is also related to the reason that the YIMBY types aren’t happy about the California Exodus. Locally, it’s also the same reason that some who claim a “housing crisis” supported something like DISC – which would INCREASE the demand for housing – if successful.
The other “artificial” claim that they never even bother to mention is that it will ALWAYS be cheaper to live farther away from employment centers (or other desirable features of a given community). Jackson Hole comes to mind in regard to a community that has almost no jobs, but is nevertheless highly desirable and VERY expensive.
In any case, one cat has enormous claws (those associated with the technology industry), while the other cat has been declawed (the barista). But both will ultimately find a good spot. And after awhile, the declawed cat has a better chance of growing his own claws elsewhere.
By the way, there’s also nothing preventing ultra wealthy people from “refusing” to develop their own property (e.g., one-acre lots in Atherton), or from buying up the lots next to them (as has often occurred over time). Is the result of that also “artificial”?
And truth be told, our entire society is made up of “artificial” decisions – including decisions to pursue industries. Those type of decisions don’t occur by “accident”.
There were earlier decisions made to pave over the entire San Jose area (which used to primarily be orchards) in order to pursue industry. Was that an “artificial” decision?
Pretty sure there wouldn’t be a “housing crisis” in San Jose, if that never occurred.
Are you engaging or enabling?
Ron O
Your problem is that you are confusing two types of scarcity, one created by a confluence of multiple conditions and has a potential for being corrected by changes on the other side of the ledger, the other being artificial scarcity created by an explicit policy intended to price certain groups out of the market. Davis through Measure J/R/D has created artificial scarcity that is discriminatory and cannot be easily corrected through adjustments in supply. This is a market failure which invalidates the principle of scarcity as a means of balancing demand and supply. It undermines your entire rationale of leaving this to the market–that rationale is based entirely on the principle that demand and supply can both adjust to arrive at a new equilibrium. Measure J/R/D prevents this from happening. If we modify Measure J/R/D to ease the ability to build more housing and scarcity prices continue, then your reasoning might be valid, but until then your relying on a fallacy.
Our entire society is built on “artificial” societal decisions. Yosemite National Park is an “artificial” decision, as is the dam contained therein. The decision to create Davis, UCD, California, the casinos across the state, and the country itself are artificial decisions. We live in a society where “artificial intelligence” is taking over (and probably not a minute too soon).
Money itself isn’t real – we all just “agree” that it is. It’s not even backed by gold anymore (which also has no intrinsic value to justify its artificial price).
Regarding growth restrictions, the populace (and businesses) adjust since they’re both mobile. That’s also why perhaps half the people in Davis came from somewhere else (more expensive than Davis).
Ultimately, it does appear that costs in general (not just for housing, but for everything) are a factor in young people having fewer kids these days (1.6 per woman – NATIONWIDE). 2.1 are needed for “replacement” purposes. So there’s some more good news for you to digest.
But if you REALLY want to look at what’s “artificial” – it’s employment/economic activity that are driving demand in most areas. If you doubt that, maybe you think that houses in Silicon Valley cost the same as they do in Davis.
Measure J/R/D doesn’t prevent it from happening, it just constrains it in a box. But same with any city with a border it could not expand beyond — i.e., one without farmland around it.
I think I have an updated definition of “artificial” –
“Artificial” decisions are societal decisions that YIMBYs don’t like. In contrast, “real” decision are those that they do like.
I’ll leave it up to them, in regard to how they define decisions such as preserving Yosemite (or the construction/maintenance of the Hetch Hetchy dam contained therein). Not sure if the dam itself is artificial, or real. (Though I think we’d find out pretty quickly, if it collapsed on its own.) I might ask the same question regarding the dam holding back Lake Berryessa.
I think the YIMBY’S have set up duplex housing, rent free, in your head.
Duplexes I’m o.k. with – it’s the Covell Village developments that I’m not crazy about.
But seriously – when talking about “artificial”, our entire society is based on artificial decisions. Money itself is artificial (at least until it comes time to pay a bill).
If you were coming from another planet, you might think a penny has more value than a $100 bill. But you wouldn’t even know what they’re for in the first place.
Even gold has very little intrinsic value that I’m aware of. As I recall reading somewhere, the native tribes thought that the Americans were nuts to dig up that stuff, fight over it, stake claims, etc.
And yet now – they’re the champions of taking fake value (casinos).