The Abundance Agenda

Today I am going to write about something about which I know very little. Yeah, yeah, I can hear you all asking what makes this different from any other day. Well, today I am even less informed than normal. However, if you are like me, your social media feeds have been filled with discussion of the so-called abundance agenda. As far as I can tell, this all started with a book written by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson named, not surprisingly, "Abundance". While the book is a "New York Times Bestseller", I have not read it and I'm unlikely to do so. But, based on the summaries with which I have been inundated on social media, it seems that Klein and Thompson argue that liberals have used regulations to prevent development rather than to promote beneficial development. They propose a new agenda aimed at streamlining regulations to deliver infrastructure and things like affordable housing quicker and cheaper. I want to explain why I believe this is the wrong argument at the wrong time and then discuss one aspect of the abundance agenda.

As I have said in earlier posts and as I have tried to make clear ever since I decided to devote this blog to politics, the United States is facing a unique threat to our democracy. We have a president who believes that he is a king who can rule through decree — in this case, executive actions — and who is openly defying the Supreme Court. A shadow president has seized control of the most sensitive government data — potentially for his own use — and has deployed a cadre of loyalists in key positions throughout the government. A modern-day Gestapo is running rampant through our streets, seizing people who have committed no crime and deporting them to foreign gulags. Our government is being destroyed in the name of cost savings, when, in fact, the deficit will increase as a result of tax cuts for the rich. In the meantime, government contracts continue to flow to favored interests, including the shadow president himself. To say that we have much bigger fish to fry than liberal attitudes towards regulation is to put it extremely mildly. In what world does it make sense to debate regulations when we are governed by officials who are removing or ignoring all regulations? This is not rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic; this is having a debate between passengers on the Titanic about the rules governing deck chair arrangements. We need to use all of our energy to confront cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump, and a new policy regarding land use is not going to save us.

Anyone who is devoting time and energy to creating a debate between Democrats at this time either has their head buried so far in the sand that they have no idea what is actually happening in this country, or they live such privileged lives that they firmly believe none of it will actually harm them. I suspect that more often than not, the reason is the latter. If you are not concerned about trans people losing rights, if you are not worried that you, your friends, or your family will be deported, and if you are fairly certain that Medicare or Medicaid cuts will not be a problem for you, then you can ignore all of that and argue about regulations. But for many people, including a large part of the Democratic coalition, this is not the time for this debate. We need to be putting all of our efforts into fighting the current government rather than ourselves.

With that off my chest, I want to talk about one type of development that has been repeatedly brought up in my social media feeds: housing development. I think we can stipulate to a few facts. First, regulations, especially zoning regulations, frequently slow or prevent housing development. With the housing supply constrained, the cost of housing goes up. Zoning and regulation changes could stimulate housing development and lead to lower costs. However, what I think gets ignored in this debate is the fact that for many, perhaps most, homeowners, their home is their most valuable asset. Homeowners count on their homes retaining value at worst, and preferably, gaining value. A drop in housing prices, for most homeowners, means a significant reduction in net worth. As such, homeowners go to great lengths to protect property values.

The opposite, of course, is true for those who don't own homes. Increasing housing costs makes purchasing a home even more challenging. Moreover, there tends to be a downstream impact of increasing rents. Increasingly, many are being locked out of the housing market or forced to commit an onerous percentage of their income to housing costs. Increasing rents often force people out of existing housing, in some cases, completely remaking entire communities. For these folks, expanded housing development that would lead to lower costs would be an ideal solution.

Clearly, the fundamental conflict here is that homeowners and non-homeowners have completely opposite incentives regarding housing development. One group wants prices to remain steady if not increase. The other group wants to see housing costs decrease. I suspect that the divergent views of housing development regulations stem almost entirely from this conflict. I have no idea how you square this circle. How do you make housing more available for one group without decreasing the value of another group's primary asset? I don't have the answer and I am not sure that the abundance agenda folks do either.

As long as individuals' wealth is largely dependent upon the value of their homes, they will fight to protect property values. Those who have purchased single-family homes do not want to suddenly become next-door neighbors to a multiunit housing development. Not only do they believe (probably correctly) that their quality of life will be negatively impacted, but they worry about the effect on property values. So fixated do homeowners often become on property values, that it impacts every aspect of their living environment, including school zoning, commercial development, roads, and even mass transportation routes. Moreover, while I have no way of knowing, I strongly suspect that the abundance proponents are not proposing unregulated or less regulated housing development in their own neighborhoods. It is likely that they are strongly in favor of abundance as long as its negative impacts affect others.

I may well be wrong, and I would be happy to be corrected, but I do not believe that the abundance agenda promoters have addressed this property values conundrum in a satisfactory way. The protective nature of homeowners of property values does not only create hurdles to regulations, it provides a potential split in the Democratic coalition. Suburban and older voters are more likely to own homes and favor very controlled development. Younger and urban voters are more likely to be renters and support development that will increase the housing supply. Overlay this with racial and class components, and things get even more difficult. More importantly, this dilemma is far more complicated than simply being something caused by liberal Democrats who are reluctant to embrace regulatory reform. It derives from a fundamental characteristic of our economy. Engaging in an critique that is primarily aimed at one component of the Democratic coalition has a time and a place. That time is definitely not now. The best housing policy in the world is not going to help us if we are ruled by a man who will either ignore it or sign an executive order prohibiting its implementation.