I find the term “anti-abundance left” odd. He wrote a book called “Abundance” laying out the case for deregulating zoning laws. Claiming global monopolies in aggregate seems more like a conspiracy theory. I thought the mainstream (left) opposition to deregulation was to subsidize affordable housing regardless of the cause.
The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong
151–160 of 817 posts
Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in a very wealthy, extraordinarily progressive muni (almost certainly in the top 5 nationally), and my primary political project is zoning reform, and I assure you that left-NIMBYism is a thing, and that the "we should make blue state governments perform better and increase supply of things people want" thesis of "Abundance" (Thompson and Klein's book) is a bête noire among those leftists. The argument isn't t…
I guess this is a bit definitional, but I do not think of "very wealthy, extraordinarily progressive" people as typically leftist. I think of them as liberal and only in the American brain is that associated with leftism, so much so that we usually distinguish between "leftists" and "liberals" rhetorically. With, say, Hillary Clinton, being a classic American liberal and Bernie Sanders being more like a leftist. If y…
Again, if you try to collapse this down to "leftists" vs "Derek Thompson", you're totally missing the point. Thompson's rhetorical adversary here are "people who believe we shouldn't do the zoning and envelope reforms required to increase the supply of housing", a subset of whom are on the political left and thus in his target audience: his term for them --- fairly applied! --- is "the antitrust left", but you could (like I do) call them "left-NIMBYs" and be in the same rhetorical place.
Most leftists gag over current anti-housing laws (I wish that were true of the right, but right-YIMBYs make up a tiny minority of the political right).
Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
You said heavily processed and barely-reported If you want to say Fridman's content is "barely-reported", i.e. he barely does journalism, then I won't really argue. But the interviews are NOT heavily processed, and that's precisely why some on the left won't sit with him. (But not Thompson and Klein, because they actually have something to say.) So ironically, it kinda balances out. Being credulous attracts guests wh…
I'm not making a value judgement. There are analysts and opinion writers I enjoy reading and get a lot of value from. But hosting a podcast interview with someone is basically the opposite of shoe-leather reporting. I guess if you did "stitch incoming" every couple minutes and cut to Fridman calling someone else to have conversations with other sources about whatever claim his primary guest just made, you'd be gettin…
You are touting "call up the authorities" and shitting sitting down and talking face to face with authorities, which reads like a value judgement.
Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
100% "Supply and Demand" is a law of nature. If you build infinite luxury apartments, in the limit their value is zero. Build more luxury housing and the inventory increases. If you've met the city's housing demands (which you probably won't since nearly every city is behind on meeting demand), then it follows that typically less desirable inventory experiences less demand and will subsequently experience a price dro…
> "Supply and Demand" is a law of nature It's a law of human nature. Value is inherently subjective, which makes deriving it from natural laws conditional upon a physical explanation for humanity.
Value is partly subjective but all value eventually can tied to the reversal of entropy. And the reversal of entropy costs energy.
It is naive to think the topic is wholly subjective. Subjectivity is one aspect of value but not only does the subjectivity coincidentally correlate with entropy reversal… but entropy reversal is also intrinsic to all value as even a human being alive and assigning value to something carries an energy cost. This cost is non trivial as it takes a lot for you to live and a lot more to have the luxury to think in terms of value.
Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong
#155The bigger problem, at least in my neck of the woods, is they're not building affordable housing. By-and-large they are building luxury apartments and luxury homes. We've torn down half the city to build luxury apartments that sit at 20-30% occupancy. Building luxury housing won't help the housing crisis until the sellers are on the brink of bankruptcy and forced to sell their properties at a reasonable price.
Luxury is just a realestate buzzword that means newly built and has stone countertops. Nothing that actually meaningfully impacts the pricing.
The vast majority of "luxury" properties are just regular property that spend a marginal amount on nicer appliances and finishing.
Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
This article is good, but the phrase "antitrust left" really turned me off. I am probably some kind of a leftist (I want higher taxes on rich people and a society much more welfare oriented with a substantial degree of labor and resource allocation performed democratically instead of by markets) but I don't know a single leftist who actually cares about this housing shit except to think that houses should be cheaper…
I live in a very wealthy, extraordinarily progressive muni (almost certainly in the top 5 nationally), and my primary political project is zoning reform, and I assure you that left-NIMBYism is a thing, and that the "we should make blue state governments perform better and increase supply of things people want" thesis of "Abundance" (Thompson and Klein's book) is a bête noire among those leftists. The argument isn't t…
Politics is local and there's nothing more local than your housing values
Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
"there are lots of yuppies who want to defend their housing prices who might be liberal but I don't associate this position with leftism in any way" People tend to call the Democrats the left, as they're at least somewhat leftward of the Republicans. It's at least easier for discussion purposes than speaking of the right and the other right.
Yeah, I get it. But we also use liberal and I think in this particular case its worth drawing the distinction between these two "camps" of the democratic party.
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Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong
#158So much of the journalism we read is heavily processed and barely-reported and it's startling to see how much of a superpower simple shoe-leather reporting actually is. Derek Thompson's an incredibly sharp writer, but not really a subject matter expert on housing economics; all he did here was read papers and call up the authorities they cited, and the narrative behind those papers collapsed. We're often so down on j…
This article is good, but the phrase "antitrust left" really turned me off. I am probably some kind of a leftist (I want higher taxes on rich people and a society much more welfare oriented with a substantial degree of labor and resource allocation performed democratically instead of by markets) but I don't know a single leftist who actually cares about this housing shit except to think that houses should be cheaper…
> houses should be cheaper by any means necessary.
That's basically the position Klein has in the book Abundance, but everywhere I go online the left automatically comes out hostile to it or anything that embraces market solutions. Your anecdote might be true but beyond your small sample size it doesn't seem representative. Broadly, they want populist solutions. This is why Sanders and Warren gave a lukewarm criticism of tariffs, and why they like price controls for grocery stores despite their having small margins, and risk of food shortages it could bring.
Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong
#159What about wealth inequality as the root cause of housing shortage? Even if supply is eased, the wealthy (those who have enough capital to earn passive income) will buy the extra supply and rent to the poor. The Piketty effect takes over, they invest their profit in more housing, wealth inequality continues to get worse, and while more housing exists, it owned by an increasingly small cohort. Personally I'd like to s…
You haven't actually worked this example out. Try it. The wealthy buy the extra supply; they now compete with all the existing supply for tenants. What happens next?
The total housing supply remains static - the number of owners goes down and the tenants increase, so the S/D curve for housing stays the same. Then the wealthy consolidate the supply into smaller, more powerful groups who drive up rents via monopolist and cartel behavior (eg RealPage).
Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong
#160I find the term “anti-abundance left” odd. He wrote a book called “Abundance” laying out the case for deregulating zoning laws. Claiming global monopolies in aggregate seems more like a conspiracy theory. I thought the mainstream (left) opposition to deregulation was to subsidize affordable housing regardless of the cause.
Restating something I said upthread, but I think the right way to think about Thompson's rhetorical adversary here is "people on the political left who believe that antitrust is the high-order bit on housing affordability and that zoning reform shouldn't occur until after antitrust issues are addressed". He's arguing with people who are pushing back on legalizing housing density. He is not arguing broadly against the political left; in a reasonable US macro view of politics, he is part of that political left; there are people much further to his left that are nonetheless in lock step with him on housing, all of whom I believe he'd be thrilled to endorse.