Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo
inpractice.yimbyaction.org

Process over outcomes is a great way of putting it.

For example, California has a well known environmental law, often referred to as its acronym, CEQA. Intended to protect the environment, it was certainly well intentioned, and surely much of what it accomplishes is good. But as the Wikipedia article notes:

> CEQA lawsuits (and threats of CEQA lawsuits) are frequently used by groups that want to block a proposed project for reasons other than its environmental impacts.

> Carol Galante, a professor of Affordable Housing and Urban Policy at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, who served in the Obama Administration as the Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), stated that "It (CEQA) has been abused in this state for 30 years by people who use it when it has nothing to do with an environmental reason, ... NIMBY-ism is connected to the fact that for everyone who owns their little piece of the dream, there's no reason to want development next door to them, CEQA gives them a tool to effectuate their interest ... We need to fundamentally rethink how the CEQA process works in this state."

> CEQA has been used by residents in San Francisco and Los Angeles to attempt to block homeless shelters and affordable housing projects from being located in their neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, the well intentioned process ended up producing some very bad outcomes that were not anticipated. Not only are some projects blocked for reasons that are not about the environment, those blockages can easily end up hurting the environment; the people don't disappear if you make it harder to do high density, infill development, they'll just go live somewhere else, probably somewhere more sprawly that's worse for environment.

Politicians are beholden to the members of their district, not would-be members. Sure, more affordable housing would benefit many people, but it wouldn't benefit the members of the district, particularly the wealthy and powerful, since more affordable housing is very nearly equivalent to real estate values decreasing (at the very least, as perceived by voters). Sure, renters would in theory benefit, but real estate prices aren't rental rates, and the renters have to move to capture the improvement in pricing, often outside of the district.

Essentially, the status quo of real estate pricing always increasing in a district serves everyone within the district well enough. Any change to that is a massive financial risk to property owners, so it will be vigorously opposed.