Overall, pretty meh piece.
I keep seeing Democrats say the resistance failed.
There was no resistance to start with.
This is the policy failure haunting blue states. It has become too hard to build and too expensive to live in the places where Democrats govern. (…) The problem is the rules and the laws and political cultures that govern construction in many blue states.
So, gonna ask for deregulation? (reads further, goes into a long tangent about a high speed rail on California that went nowhere due to having to “Negotiating with courts, with funders, with business owners, with homeowners, with farm owners. Those negotiations cost time, which costs money.”)
In Houston, there’s no zoning code, so building is easy, and the median home price is over $300,000. Compare that with Los Angeles, where the median price is around a million dollars.
So, he wants deregulation, but doesn’t want to say it out loud. To be fair, I can understand that some regulations can be too asinine or nonsensical, but you gotta point them out clearly.
If liberals do not want Americans to turn to the false promise of strongmen, they need to offer the fruits of effective government. They need to offer Americans a liberalism that builds.
Not gonna happen, the rich overlords don’t want that.
I do think it is a winning strategy to focus on abundance which includes abundance of homes. I do think that talking about deregulating things for housing can be worthwhile. I know that Minneapolis removed regulations around single family home requirements that has been a success in building new housing.
I think there is something to be said here about showing the value of well run government. This is how to counter the narrative of how the government is nothing but evil. This includes removing regulations that are not needed but keeping those that save lives. Removing single family homes and parking lot requirements can do lots about making cities better. If Democrats want to be the party of urban American make cities livable.
Is it lead poisoning?
