Washington DC, America’s bluest city, is building more homes per capita than Houston—not with bottom-up zoning reform but with top-down government action.
August 14, 2025
Since Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book Abundance was published, the policy world has debated the causes of our current housing supply drought. Abundance argued that zoning laws are the culprit, as part of its broader thesis calling for liberals to embrace a policy vision oriented around building more of what we need (i.e., “abundance”) primarily through targeted deregulation of private industry and de-proceduralization of government. Other analysts believe that it is consolidation in the housing market that slows development. But both camps aim to expand housing supply, and solutions are not always derived from the causes of the problem. Cancer isn’t caused by the absence of chemo drugs or radiation, but that is often the treatment. Instead of debating causes, focusing on what policy solutions work best might be a better approach.
At the highest level, there are two competing policy perspectives. On the one hand, the YIMBY approach to increasing housing construction is essentially a passive one: Government should get out of the way of private development by passing zoning reform, making it easier to get permits, eliminating minimum lot size requirements, and reducing or eliminating parking mandates. This group advocates mostly for “upzoning” reform, a version of deregulation that allows landowners to build multiple housing units on property previously zoned for single-family homes.
An emerging “post-neoliberal” approach, on the other hand, calls for government to take a more active role: an increase in public funding, city planning to build more densely, tax incentives for development, and even public ownership. These tactics can include government spending, but they can also be structured to break even or even generate revenue. A version of this approach, promoted by the nonprofit New Consensus, argues that the best way to build is to set big goals, provide high-level leadership, and mobilize both private industry and government toward those goals (who then find myriad ways to overcome obstacles project by project). A city can use both approaches at the same time, of course. But they differ fundamentally in approach—one involves getting government out of the way, and the other involves more government attention.
I don’t believe we are forced to choose between the two options described in this article. But if I had to choose I between them, I would choose the YIMBY option. In my humble opinion, the government financing option is the absolute worst.