The Abundance Agenda Promises Everything to Everyone All at Once
"[YIMBYs] critique of citizen veto points over housing has quickly spread to other areas of the regulatory state."
What It’s About
Britschgi traces the intellectual and political history of the rising popularity of the "Abundance Agenda," a movement to dismantle bureaucratic obstacles to innovation and growth. Despite significant public spending, bureaucratic red tape and special-interest carve-outs have hampered progress on key issues like housing, particularly in Democratic-controlled states. He shows how this challenge has spurred liberal Abundance thinkers to embrace deregulation as a tool and aligned them with libertarians like Britschgi.
Upshot
Britschgi argues that:
- Progressive states are strangling their own growth: Overbearing regulations in states like California have led to shocking unaffordability, driving residents and businesses toward less regulated red states
- Deregulation is gaining bipartisan traction: Formerly niche libertarian ideas like zoning reform, occupational deregulation, and high-skilled immigration reform are increasingly popular among left of center thinkers
- Disagreements lurk about public investment: The abundance alliance between libertarians and liberals is primarily about increasing the supply of goods through deregulation; these two camps may disagree when it comes to increasing supply through public investment
Why It Matters
Liberals have sabotaged their own goals by creating unaffordability and forcing outmigration. Libertarian thinkers like Britschgi are in lock step with the abundance movement on deregulatory policies as a way to solve some of these problems, but have reservations about public investment.
Who Wrote It
Christian Britschgi is a reporter at Reason who covers property rights, housing policy, transportation policy, and regulation.
