Abundance
by Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson · first published 2025
35% recommend50% neutral15% critical
Why HN recommends it
Readable account of why America struggles to build housing, transit and infrastructure, tracing it to permitting, zoning, NIMBYism and well-meant regulation. Suits readers wanting a policy frame for building more.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we hav
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…When rich people get money they buy assets. We have had extreme asset inflation since then. Metals, equities, real estate etc. Watch Gary's Economics on youtube. We get out of it by building more, read Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Its extremely simple.
on “Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore” ↗It's in the article but I want to elevate it to the thread for folks who don't read the article. The new book Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson is an interesting book in the context of modern American Politics and inflation and worth a read. We all know adding money to a system without adding more stuff creates…
on “Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo” ↗Please read Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson to understand why there is no TGV in California. Long story short : Well intended regulations and excessive outsourcing to the private sector made the costs prohibitive.
on “France's new high-speed train has Americans asking: Why can't we have that?” ↗If this and/or the policies, leadership, and mindset that enable these kinds of things interest you, I highly recommend Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. IIRC, they outline data centers in space in his utopian introduction.
on “Starcloud” ↗It's simply that blue states haven't been making a case that democrats know how to run things. I would seriously recommend reading Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
on “We are no longer a serious country” ↗I recommend reading Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. This permitting we have today is in response to very real problems of unrestricted growth in the past. It led to horrible pollution and squalor. The pendulum has swung…
on “Show HN: SimCity, but with Permits” ↗…land availability & zoning laws, leading to massive spread. Public transit will work for some of the people some of the time. (That is, if it can even be built - highly recommend Ezra Klein's new book Abundance on ways to get out of this). For the people that public transit won't work for, you need to come up with a new solution if you want to see cars go away: a solution that makes going from A to B some combination…
on “Waymos crash less than human drivers” ↗…been a slow-roll towards "rule by EO" since then. In addition, the processes Congress creates are somewhat sclerotic for several reasons; there's a relatively good book out recently by Ezra Klein titled "Abundance" on the details. Federal judges generally don't prior-constrain the Executive. Hypothetically, the flow of control should be Congress restraining the Executive if it fails to do Congress's will; The…
on “How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack” ↗…anyone knows it and it's going to be the first big chance to push back on the current administration, but I see so little work that's being done to create a coherent opposition party. Ezra Klein's book on Abundance was a great starting point. In Dem spaces though, reaction to the book was pretty much absent. Most of Dem base temporarily got busy trying to come up with ways that Klein has failed some progressive…
on “How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack” ↗…'one true way' of using public funds, according to those in charge. Don't disagree or you might get labeled a fascist. We see this all around the world. Just look at the reaction to Ezra Klein's book 'Abundance'. Such obvious solutions, things we can all agree on (I consider myself a conservative and enjoyed the parts of the book I've read). But if you look at the reaction it's getting, it's the same tired rhetoric.…
on “Why does Britain feel so poor?” ↗This is basically the entire theme of "Abundance" by Klein and Thompson, for those looking for a longer read on this. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_(Klein_and_Thompson_...
on “California needs to learn from Houston and Dallas about homelessness” ↗…from simple turn lanes all the way to high-speed rail. This is not the only reason America has trouble building infrastructure, but it is an important reason. See Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson‘s new book Abundance for a long-form analysis of this… or for a contrast with the US’s “lawyerly society” (and, of course, the disadvantages of leaning too much in the other direction) Dan Wang’s Breakneck: China's Quest…
on “A turn lane in Rhododendron” ↗Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson tackle this specific example (along with others) in their book Abundance that came out last year. It's a pretty easy read, and a really interesting examination of why projects like this struggle. But as other commenters have pointed out — a lot of it is NIMBYism (plus a heavy…
on “California high-speed rail price tag jumps to $231B, nearly 7x 2008 estimate” ↗I just got through Abundance by Ezra Klein and thoroughly enjoyed it.
on “Ask HN: What are young technically minded people reading?” ↗This analysis, for whatever it's worth, is wrestling with a straw man. Klein and Thompson never claim that permitting reform is the only lever available. The housing strategy Abundance documents is that of the YIMBY movement, and YIMBYs are all-of-the-above advocates. If you can get subsidized housing built, you get it built. Meanwhile, you fix exclusionary zoning and clear a path for…
on “Profiling the "Abundance" housing bottleneck with real data” ↗