Many top Democrats on Beacon Hill say they’re big fans of the book roiling the party’s intellectual circles with its critique of why blue states build too little housing, transit and clean energy projects. iStock illustration
“Abundance” delivers a 304-page spanking to Blue America for years of yakking endlessly about the need for more affordable housing and clean energy – yet failing to build much of either.
The best-selling book by New York Times columnist and podcaster Ezra Klein and his counterpart at The Atlantic, Derek Thompson, takes blue states like Massachusetts to task for driving up housing and other costs by bogging projects down under a blizzard of regulations and reviews.
And Democrats in Massachusetts and other blue states? Well, they can’t get enough of it.
Fans include Gov. Maura Healey, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, Congressman Jake Auchincloss – and two key State House leaders as well.
The book urges blue state leaders to dispense with reviewing projects to death and instead adopt a pro-growth agenda that focuses on getting housing, clean energy, transit and other worthy projects built.
And “Abundance” also holds up the example of red states like Texas that are producing far more housing and even renewable energy, while attracting a steady stream of blue state residents fed up with rising costs.
Big-Name Dems Embrace Book
Healey noted in an interview on GBH’s Boston Public Radio that she recently met with the two authors, Klein and Thompson.
“I am a subscriber to the ‘Abundance’ theory,” Healey said in the radio interview.
In May, the governor announced a series of cuts to business regulations, putting into practice lessons learned from the book, a spokesperson said.
Ezra Klein
Driscoll, in a statement, shared her favorite quote from the book that government “needs to justify itself not through the rules it follows but through the outcomes it delivers.”
Auchincloss, who is at the center of speculation over a potential primary challenge to Sen. Ed Markey, went on Klein’s podcast over the winter to talk about efforts to boost housing construction and other issues.
“I agree with the ‘Abundance’ agenda and agree it with it across a number of different sectors, but I think it’s incomplete,” Auchincloss told Klein.
“Yes, we need zoning reform, but we also need to lean into off-site production to turn housing production … toward modular construction, where it is more factory intensive,” he added.
Derek Thompson
Key Legislative, Biz Leaders, Too
State Sen. Barry Finegold, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, is another fan of the influential book.
The Andover Democrat is working on a proposal aimed at addressing some of the barriers to housing construction in the state.
“I think Ezra Klein is incredibly smart and does his homework,” Finegold told me. “We have to break down the barriers to permitting. It’s too hard, too long and too expensive to build here in Massachusetts, and for lack of a better expression, it is killing us.”
Some top local business and real estate industry leaders have also read the book, including Charles River Regional Chamber President and CEO Greg Reibman, NAIOP Massachusetts CEO Tamara Small and Dan Dain, co-founder of downtown commercial real estate law firm Dain, Torpy, Le Ray, Wiest & Garner, PC.
“I love the ‘Abundance’ angle because those of us who actually try to bring housing and alternative energy projects to our community just find every proposal gets crushed under endless process and whipsawing,” Dain told me. “These projects should all be entitled to seek single comprehensive permits.”
Image courtesy of Simon and Schuster
No Fans in City Hall?
Klein and Thompson trace blue states’ paralysis-by-analysis mode of governance to the environmental movement in 1960s and 1970s and efforts to rein in development and rampant pollution. But those movements didn’t know when to quit, they argue, with once-landmark laws like the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, turning into a weapon for stopping new multifamily housing.
Still, not everyone is completely enamored with the book.
State Sen. Michael Barrett contends Massachusetts should be given credit for being ahead of the curve with the MBTA Communities Act, which requires cities and towns to open their doors to new apartments and condominiums.
Barrett, co-chair of the Legislature’s Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Committee, also cited legislation passed that would make it easier to get new electric grid and other energy infrastructure work through what can be a years-long approval slog.
“The muted recognition of Massachusetts’ progress speaks to the frailties of the ‘Abundance’ agenda – borne out, too, in the IRA’s failure to win red state votes for the Democrats in 2024. This stuff is about building things, not stopping things, but it takes a whole lot of time to happen,” the Lexington Democrat said.
“Abundance” has also raised the hackles of the “degrowthers,” which the book is particularly critical of. This slice of the left sees the solution to climate change, housing costs and other issues as effectively reining in growth and development.
And perhaps its most prominent foes on the left: anti-monopoly activists like Fordham University Law School professor and frequent New York State candidate Zephyr Teachout. They contend the real problem behind things like America’s housing shortage is concentrated corporate power in the housing sector.
A spokesperson for Kairos Shen, Boston’s planning czar, said the former MIT Center for Estate chief had not read the book.
As for Sheila Dillion, the city’s housing chief, a spokesperson said he was reasonably sure she hadn’t read it.
And Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who has garnered a reputation in some corners for being cool to new market-rate housing, did not respond to my request for comment on “Abundance.”
Under Wu, housing production has fallen off a cliff amid her administration’s expensive, new carbon-neutral design mandates and affordable housing set-asides.
Sometimes, simply declining to comment is the most telling statement of all.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist and publisher of the Contrarian Boston newsletter; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
