Envisioning Abundance: Politics and Housing Challenges

Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson is probably the most talked-about book in the country right now. And the most hotly debated. It’s a book about how we got here — here being a country without enough housing, a country that has lost its ambitious optimism, a country that has forgotten how to build. The prescription Ezra and Derek offer to cure what ails us is conspicuously pro-growth: more housing, more clean energy, more scientific development and technological innovation. But to pull that off, they argue, will require Democrats to question their endemic zeal for regulation. This view has fired up some liberals while simultaneously drawing ire from others. Today, Rufus sits down with Derek Thompson to talk about the book, the reaction to it, and how to convince political leaders from both sides of the aisle to embrace a liberalism that builds.