My book, Build or Die: How America Suffocates Its Cities and What to Do About It, will be published by Princeton University Press on December 8, 2026. Preorder the book now from Bookshop.org.
Recent Work
A few months ago I wrote a piece for Inside Philanthropy called “Philanthropy Needs to Pick a Side on the Housing Construction Debate.” As you can probably imagine, the piece drew some heated responses from the anti-YIMBY nonprofits that I criticized therein. This week, I wrote a follow-up responding to my interlocutors and clarifying my position:
While progressive YIMBYs have aligned around an agenda that incorporates many non-YIMBY housing advocates’ priorities, a significant bloc of those advocates have continued to oppose YIMBY legislation or demand poison pill amendments. Too many housing advocacy groups in Sacramento still fundamentally reject the premise that California needs much more market-rate housing construction, and act accordingly.
[…]
Unless something drastic changes, we may eventually find ourselves at a point where none of the necessary interventions to improve housing affordability are politically feasible. Only by moving aggressively on all fronts — spurring market-rate housing production, making large public investments in affordability, and protecting existing tenants — can we begin to show tangible results. And we will only achieve those results with a unified front.
That’s why the infighting needs to stop. But a real partnership can’t be one sided; the terms can’t be that YIMBYs passively assent to having their bills watered down or nuked entirely. Instead, other housing groups need to accept the overwhelming evidence that stimulating market-rate housing production, even in the absence of affordability requirements or community benefit agreements, is a necessary condition for ending the housing crisis.
Links
Recent events have me returning to this Samantha Hancox-Li piece on the breakdown of “the patriarchal bargain.”
Along similar lines, I recommend this more recent essay from Seva Gunitsky on the deep connections between modern autocracy and incel culture.
Vinson Cunningham has written a great essay on Killers of the Flower Moon for the Criterion Collection.
A lastly, B.D. McClay on Only Yesterday, which really is a lovely piece of filmmaking. Her review reminded me that I’ve been meaning to rewatch it.
Sounds
“One Thing At A Time,” from Courtney Barnett’s incredible new record, Creature of Habit.