Move fast, break things: A review of Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
132 comments
·April 2, 2025davidw
energy123
For people who don't want to live in density, the counter intuitive thing is that it'll be easier to buy a single detached house if you allow more condos, especially 2/3 bedroom units, because there will be less competition. It's the pigeon hole principle.
kuboble
But this is exactly the issue.
It's not the wannabe home owners who are protesting but the current home owners who are rightly afraid that it will immensely reduce value of their homes.
nradov
That's a common misconception. The most active NIMBYs have lived in their homes for years and intend to die there. They don't intend to ever sell and aren't particularly concerned with property values per se. What they do care about are quality of life issues: noise, traffic, privacy, parking, crime, litter, etc. The more neighbors you have, the greater the risk that some of them will be antisocial assholes who let their pit bulls run loose and have screaming arguments late at night (which I have experienced in person). This may seem selfish but if you want to promote more housing development then you need to understand their concerns.
davidw
Here's a specific hearing that I attended where exactly that dynamic played out
https://bendyimby.com/2024/04/16/the-hearing-and-the-housing...
A room full of angry, wealthy, older people who showed up at 11AM on a weekday to stop homes for people who doubtless earn less than they do. And in that case, they were successful, sadly.
xnx
Would it reduce the value of their homes? My property would be a lot more if it were legal to tear it down and put up a 10 unit apartment building.
I think the complaint is more than they don't want their neighbors houses replaced by apartment buildings.
Panzer04
Its interesting to consider the effects. Assuming you must live in a house, you actually lose nothing in a devaluation.
If you own outright, all houses being cheaper means you can buy exactly as much house as you already owned if you sold.
If you don't own, houses being cheaper lets you buy more house.
Houses being cheaper relative to everything else means that if you sold your house you can buy less of other stuff with that money, but given you need a home anyway you've not actually lost anything in a fundamental sense. It's probably a bit too abstract to convince people to look at it this way though, and realistically you are losing value relative to everything but housing.
It's overall just a short-term mindset, sadly. Most people derive the majority of their income from things unrelated to property, so cheaper property lets them buy more house than otherwise regardless.
energy123
Your comment didn't deserve to be downvoted. This might not be the primary factor behind local opposition, but it is a factor in why it's difficult for state or federal politicians to enact real reform, even something like amending tax policy. Two thirds of the population don't see the housing crisis as a crisis, for them it's either a housing bonanza, or it's something that they don't want to see happen but are afraid of being personally injured if it's fixed due to their leverage being multiple times their annual income.
intended
At the same time a recent NBER paper indicates that it’s not housing supply that’s causing house prices to rise, but geographic income levels.
My suspicion is that it’s a question of who has more control over asset classes and wealth.
Even in India, I see eye-wateringly expensive houses snapped up, with more being built. The same for london and any major city in the world.
It feels very much like the biggest participants in the economy, are the asset managers for yet richer people.
The economy feels like it’s retooling for the wealthy and above.
tptacek
That paper compared entire metropolitan statistical areas, as if Oak Park Illinois was the same housing market as Gary Indiana, or Vallejo the same as Palo Alto.
owenpalmer
Concerning zoning laws, when my father built his house, he really had to be clever in order to dodge the local county's regulations.
1. He had to hire a biologist to convince the county inspectors that the property was not wetlands.
2. The county claimed that he couldn't put in a driveway due to regulations, but my dad found an old satellite image archive, which showed there was a prexisting logging road from decades earlier. This was a loophole that allowed him to install the driveway.
So much of the housing crisis is caused by overregulation, at least in my home state of Washington.
zbrozek
I would be so, so happy if we returned to 18th or 19th century property rights. Euclid has been a century-long disaster.
velcrovan
From another good review of the book:
> “One of the personally amusing aspects of reading Abundance is that it kept reminding me of a two-hour discussion I had with Ezra Klein in 2019 about Medicare for All. […] In our discussion, Klein balked at making Medicare for All the centerpiece of a Democratic health care agenda because he thought it was not politically practical. […] At one point in the discussion, he asks how would I overcome employer opposition to the change, and I responded that we will just have to beat it, which he clearly did not find persuasive.
> “It’s not hard to imagine having the same conversation about Abundance but with the roles reversed. Whatever the merits of their proposals, Klein and Thompson are pushing an agenda that requires direct confrontation with many powerful, entrenched constituencies.”
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2025/03/24/the-abundanc...
tptacek
And I mean, again, here's the crux of the opposition Abundance gets from the left.
The project of the Progressive movement is a decisive takeover of the state and national Democratic parties, which is what they'd need in order to get single payer, their signature policy, passed.
The notion that there's an alternative long game for the Democrats to play, that instead of enacting a massive (and controversial) change to the health care system, the party can instead just build a track record of demonstrable competency, is a problem for their movement. Why pay attention to whether the party governs well where it holds power today (that is: in essentially every major population center in the country)? That's just a distraction from the real goal, which is reworking the entire system.
Breunig is saying the quiet part loud, which is pretty typical for him.
velcrovan
Except that Bruenig isn’t opposed to Abundance (neither am I). In the conclusion to the review he says the book is fine and that people who are upset about it are blowing things out of proportion. What quiet part is being said loud in this review, again?
nradov
The focus on "Medicare for All" or single payer healthcare in general is so misguided. Commercial insurers are like the smallest problem in the whole messed up US healthcare system. Putting everyone on Medicare wouldn't solve any of the more fundamental problems.
https://www.sensible-med.com/p/the-entire-healthcare-system-...
HDThoreaun
One of the most fundamental problems with the US healthcare system is the fee for service payment system. Another closely realted one is the abundance of bureaucrats and administrators. Obamacare created a pilot program to move medicare off fee for service and toward fee per patient, and m4a would likely expand that program. Combined with some sort of pharma reform and 3 of the biggest problems healthcare face could be solved. Then congress needed to expand residency funding and the next biggest problem(lack of physicians, they currently make 9% of healthcare spending in the US) would be easily solved as well.
nradov
Commercial insurers are also moving from fee-for-service to value-based care payment models (with capitation being one approach). That isn't something unique to Medicare.
Increasing residency funding is a good idea, but I'm skeptical that it would reduce overall costs. With an aging population, demand for healthcare services is effectively infinite. The shortage of physicians is, paradoxically, one of the factors holding costs down today. If you can't see your doctor because appointments are backlogged for months then no insurance claim will be generated.
HDThoreaun
Abundance's main thesis isnt about policy at all, as the OPs author points out. Their main thesis is that democrats have lost the trust of the voters because they are too focused on process instead of results. Klein and co call for incremental policy change but even beyond that they call for a reorganization of the bureaucratic state which would require no policy change at all.
kristianp
Also related, https://patrickcollison.com/fast ; a list of things that were built really quickly and cheaply in the past.
shaldengeki
This is an extremely minor point, but:
> significant parts of our federal government have abandoned key precepts of outcome-driven problem-solving. (Just try navigating the IRS’ Free File tax return tool. I gave up and paid for H&R Block instead.)
It seems deeply weird to me to pick this example, of all things, where things are getting better because of outcome-driven problem-solving. (You might also want to consider that "I gave up on Free File" might score you anti-points with your audience.)
tptacek
This is a downright weird review. The crux of the complaint against Klein's book is that it's about values and avoids specific policy prescriptions. The lack of those policy arguments leads the reviewer to question Klein's commitment. But there's nobody in all of American political discourse that complaint falls more flat on than Ezra Klein.
The review draws a comparison between Abundance and Marc Andreesen's "Time To Build" essay, for... no discernible reason. It then points out that pmarca was ultimately hypocritical about building (he opposed development in his own town, of Atherton). I don't understand what that has to do with anything. Klein is a YIMBY. So am I. I spent my spare time working to clear the way for multifamily housing to get built right next door to my own. What the fuck do I care what pmarca did?
I think that, to understand this review, you have to understand the internal dynamics of the Democratic coalition. Progressives (the left of the party) hate Klein, and, for reasons passing understanding, the YIMBY movement writ large. The progressives have a prescription for rehabilitating the national coalition: massive public spending programs and single-payer health care. Klein and Thompson advocate for a different strategy: building a track record of demonstrated competence, and stanching/reversing the outflow of residents from blue states to red states that actually build housing. That there might be a strategy that doesn't involve a progressive takeover of the state and national parties is a problem for the movement; hence: stuff like this.
You'll see the same thing happening with Matt Breunig and Malcolm Harris' reviews, posted upthread.
jaypinho
This is a weird response - that's not what the review says at all. (I should know. I wrote it.) I'm also a YIMBY - although, as a renter, it doesn't exactly take any moral courage.
As I state clearly in the review, I share Klein and Thompson's view of the housing issue and I called that part the strongest section of the book.
My point is that what the book calls "abundance" is an incoherent mishmash of ideologically incoherent anecdotes. It's not a policy framework and it's not an agenda. So what is it?
bryanlarsen
> that's not what the review says at all. (I should know. I wrote it.)
tptacek's summary seems spot on to me. It may be not what you meant to say, but it's an accurate summary of how at least 2 readers are interpreting what you're saying. You can try and blame the readers if you wish, but we're not mind readers and can only go by the words you've written on the page and the context in which you've written them.
tptacek
What exactly does Marc Andreesen have to do with Klein and Thompson's advocacy for zoning reform?
The answer to your question is simple. In fact, you dance around it in your review! The politics of reform are about navigating the disagreements in the Democratic coalition. Indeed! The point of the book is to present a positive vision of what a Democratic coalition focused around an agenda of demonstrated competency would look like and accomplish. The book is about the persuasive effort.
It doesn't seem plausible that you'd be so unfamiliar with Klein that you didn't know he records one of the most popular policy-driven shows in the country.
jaypinho
What does his podcast have to do with anything? I'm reviewing his book, not his entire bibliography.
As I stated already, the vision is incoherent. It's fine to cherrypick specific anecdotes as examples of competent governance. But if, for example, one of the stories is about how outsourcing large infrastructure projects led to its demise while doing the same for a vaccine logistics project was the cause of its success, this isn't really much of a vision at all, is it?
You say the point is to show what "an agenda of demonstrated competency would look like and accomplish." So where is that agenda?
Panzer04
I think the crux of the matter is, as the author states: "even a positive-sum world contains winners and losers"
The core of the problem is that we don't want to trample the losers (lest those tools be used against us), but at the same time, someone is often going to come worse (from their perspective) from some very worthwhile changes. In some cases, it seems like we can just use money to compensate them, but inevitably it's going to be difficult to price that, or it'll get abused. I don't rightfully know how to address that.
It's easy enough to justify paying for compulsory acquisitions - but in more abstract circumstances it's unlikely we want to be paying existing homeowners to stop opposing removal of zoning regulations.
I don't know, its a complex topic. If one asked me I'd probably splash out a lot more money in direct compensation for aggrieved parties rather than the current status quo - it would not surprise me if people would accept even relatively token amounts relative to the theoretical benefits, given otherwise there's no difference to saying yes/no to them. Would be an interesting experiment.
heavymetalpoizn
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pj_mukh
“ Okay. So the abundance agenda calls for an expert-laden, big-government apparatus to build high-speed rail, and a lean skeleton crew that outsources all the key logistics and execution layers to the private sector for a mass vaccination campaign. It’s difficult to detect a usable framework here.”
Having read about 4 different critiques of the book, this maybe closest to a well thought out one. However, it still gives in to the hyper-partisan times looking for a straightforward template to apply in every situation when actually “it depends” is the right answer.
How to build quickly and efficiently while managing everyone’s expectation is tricky business and not every situation will fall neatly under left-right (big government or small government?!) dichotomies!
The core thesis is to optimize to build quick not for some consistent politics du jour.
tptacek
The "Abundance Agenda" doesn't demand an "expert-laden big-government apparatus" or a harnessing of private enterprise; it demands that if we're going to spend tens of billions on an HSR project, that the project actually work. The review jazz-hands around the fact that Klein is obviously right about California HSR, and he's obviously right about Operation Warp Speed.
pj_mukh
In fact most of the critiques I've read, go something like: "He's obviously right, but I don't like it cuz it smells like something bad from the 80's".
jaypinho
It takes no effort at all to see that CA HSR is an unmitigated disaster. It takes much more effort to figure out a coherent policy common denominator that shames CA for outsourcing the project to consultants while praising OWS for doing the same.
tptacek
Klein notes that one project is a dismal failure and the other a stunning success. Both are true statements, and there's really nothing you can say to make that not true. The idea that there's a single coherent set of policy prescriptions that gets you reliably to the successes and away from the failures is exactly the thing Klein doesn't claim to be offering --- in fact, you open your review by complaining about exactly that.
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NoGravitas
The review on Chapo Trap House with Matt Bruenig was pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w5rYhKL83E
rr808
Lex Fridman did a good show with the authors last week. It just sounds like supply side economics? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTPSeeKokdo
leosanchez
I was thinking of Milton Friedman the whole time I was listening to that episode :)
HDThoreaun
Supply side economics also known to economists as economics. But yes, this whole movement is basically just democrats who are also interested in economics.
vvpan
Another review: https://thebaffler.com/latest/whats-the-matter-with-abundanc...
HDThoreaun
> he last thing society needs is more stuff
The only people who say this are incredibly privileged trust fund leftists. Everyone else knows that more stuff=better life all else equal. Maybe someday that'll change but for now most people are still resource constrained. How did this become a popular take among the dem thought makers?
vvpan
I think the point is that if stuff is energy then energy is flowing into the wrong things and is not equally distributed. So we have enough of "stuff" but a lot of it is the wrong kind and access to that is not democratic. Rephrased again - inefficient human organization and outdated systems of values are what is slowing us down.
HDThoreaun
Thats not what the subtitle of the review is though. It's "The last thing society needs is more stuff" which is completely different from "we have enough stuff but can distribute it better." The difference matters. Embracing growth can happen at the same time as equitable distribution.
gcanyon
I've only read maybe 30 pages of the book, but I think the article misses the point (I hope) the book is making: there are regulations that serve a purpose, and regulations that don't, and we can, to at least some extent, tell the difference based on the regulations themselves or their impact on past projects.
If that's true, then we can shed regulations, speed the process of government, and make it more effective at actually doing things.
It might be difficult to tell which regulations are causing problems, or which are needless, or maybe that's not the point of the book; but criticizing the book for not pre-identifying exactly which regulations need to end seems overly demanding: we first need to agree that there are needless regulations that slow progress. If the book helps us reach that conclusion, it's served a purpose.
Also, as a small nit: "even a positive-sum world contains winners and losers." That needs cites I think. I'm sure there's someone in the U.S. who is worse off than a 15th century peasant, but there are precious few of them, too few to use that phrase to describe them.
hackeraccount
I've got the book on my reader but haven't started it yet.
I've heard a few interviews though with the authors and while I'd like to see their ideas succeed I am suspicious of the idea that we can just get rid of the regulations that don't work.
All regulations work. There's a reason they get codified; they're working for someone. People who own property are voting for things not to change. It's not that they mistakenly think that building more housing is against their interest - it is against their interest.
Look at housing prices in Texas and California. Which would rather own a house in? In California it's going to be expensive and get more expensive. There are no can't miss investments but a house in CA. is pretty close. Now if you're buying a house Texas might be a better bet but owners are the ones running the regulatory environment.
jaypinho
I think you'd get near-universal agreement that some regulations somewhere are ineffective and/or counterproductive. If that's all the book is attempting to achieve, it's an extremely modest goal IMO.
The problem is getting that same level of agreement about specific regulations - or, failing that, making a strong case for a specific reason why a regulation that many people think is necessary and good is actually bad. But Klein and Thompson, for the most part, avoid doing this.
tptacek
The book identifies a problem that you yourself agree with: the Democratic coalition can't build anything, can't satisfy the needs of its constituents, is losing those constituents to Republican states that can, and is losing the faith of the electorate. It also offers a diagnosis (or rather, a set of them): the unintended consequences of localism, a legislative and regulatory system that oriented more than checking boxes with every faction of the coalition than having coherent goals like "house people" or "deploy clean energy", and an unwillingness of the coalition to revisit the decisions of previous generations in light of current challenges.
Do you think any of these diagnoses are wrong? Or are you just bored by them?
Paradigm2020
He's just asking what are the specific proposals that should be enacted... That's it... Like know that you've read the book which exact law has to be passed / destroyed to increase housing supply... Without causing mass civil unrest... Which law has to be passed to get the high speed rail build in the next 3 years... Without destroying nature / being routed through poor people's home under eminent domain and not through some rich ass hole with the right connections...
He's coming at if from his pov that he's aware of the problem but is looking for solutions... Which the author's don't give...
The problem is that human made laws deal with... Human beings... And hence with game theory...
So the intent of the law != Outcome of the law.
If you just throw away the law without considering Chesterton's fence etc you are probably throwing away the baby with the bathwater... And to fix it perfectly is basically impossible as it always is in complex matters... (if it was possible ie there wouldn't be accountants who can save millions/billions for cooperations...)
The book is describing problems that a lot of people, especially on this forum, are well aware off. However instead of saying - we need to do this, or even proposing a wiki/forum/whatever to specifically fix all those individual problems/ laws it just repeats what a lot of people are already aware off in a long spun out book.
Best other book I can think of that is similar in a way (and a best seller) is thinking fast and slow with the end conclusion being ~~~ eeeuhm there is no actual way to fix your thinking but hey maybe being aware off the 2 systems might help even though we've said this whole time that it doesn't really work.
So yeah, what specific solutions have you found in this book? If you agree that there aren't any... Maybe you just were looking for A and got A and he was hoping to get B and only got A ?
He's saying it's a problem book instead of a solution book and you are repeating but yes it's a great problem book... Why does there need to be a solution book. So maybe the marketing is at fault ?
(Anyway written at night on a phone so sorry for the badly written reply, I just noticed how you repeated more or less the same message and felt like communication was not being achieved despite lots of words being exchanged - I will clarify with a clearer head tomorrow to any reply - Hanoi time zone)
I just started reading it, but the housing part of it is spot on, something I know very well from years of working to try and make my city and state's housing situation better.
The effects of the housing shortage are very real and something that can absolutely be worked on at the local and state level.
Not enough housing means:
* Longer commutes, which means more CO2, less time with friends and family, more stress, and more sprawl.
* People don't move to where the opportunities are any more.
* People do move there, but age out when they want to have a family and there's no appropriate housing.
The 'Abundance' idea is kind of vague. It makes for a good slogan, but the housing part of it is sorely needed, and it's one of the very rare issues in this day and age in the US that's not completely partisan.