Like bathroom door locks, government should just work

Reflections on Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's "Abundance," with some anecdotes from my time working at Austin City Hall.

[Next week, I’ll be sharing part one of a two-part series about my experiences pledging/depledging a Christian fraternity but I had to share about a fascinating book that’s been a hot topic in some circles.]

There’s been one book lately that many, many, many, many, many of the Substackers I subscribe to have been talking about: “Abundance” by The New York Times’ Ezra Klein and The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson. It’s been covered in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Economist, The New Yorker and many others.

I devoured this book. Not only because I’m a fan of the authors. But because I’ve seen the phenomenon this book describes firsthand.

After receiving a master’s in public administration from Texas A&M, with a concentration on state and local government, I worked as a communications director for a member of Austin City Council. The fights over housing and development were arguably the top issue in the council member’s re-election campaign and why she ultimately lost in a runoff.

But it was more than the housing fights that were wild to see. The entire experience of working at Austin City Hall gave me insights into what Klein and Thompson are getting at—that key functions of government don’t seem to work.

A bold, beautiful building where the bathroom doors don’t work

Every job I have ever had—from nonprofits to government to the private sector—time sheets were filled out online through a centralized software. Not so at Austin City Hall (and I believe across city departments). During my time there in 2016, we had to manually enter our time into Excel sheets that were then collected by the office manager and sent to business operations.

This was apparently a big leap forward for the city, which according to a local news report, had still been using paper time sheets in The Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Sixteen.

Austin City Hall is unlike any government building you’ve seen before. The glass, stone and steel structure has a multi-story light-filled atrium with offices on either side. The building is aesthetically impressive, bold and in certain ways completely dysfunctional.

Austin City Hall. If you can spot the concrete tower where the railings converge, that’s the elevator shaft that connects to the parking garage. You’ll notice you can only access it via the outdoors.

There were two main elevators in the building, and neither serviced all the floors. One went from the lobby to the upper floors. One went from the second floor down to the parking garage. But the one that went to the parking garage wasn’t connected to the areas where the offices were. If you worked in the city council offices, you would have to walk halfway across the building to get to a door that led to the large outside patio, leave the building (hopefully you brought your ID card to badge back in!), and cross the patio to the elevator that went to the parking garages.

The section of the building that housed council members and their staff had one men’s and one women’s single occupancy restrooms. There were 10 council members and each office had three to four staff members, so 40-50 people. All sharing one men’s and one women’s restrooms. It was not uncommon to have to wait.

Most aggravating of all: in a $50 million building using the latest construction materials and methods—the men’s bathroom door did not lock. It just didn’t work. There was a sign on the door reminding people to knock. The person inside would then have to shout that the room was occupied. I was almost walked in on multiple times.

This felt like the perfect metaphor for what working at Austin City Hall was like. It looked modern and forward-thinking on the outside. Millions of dollars had been spent to build a beautiful facade. But inside basic things—essential things—simply did not work.

This is the heart of what Klein and Thompson are arguing: that key functions of the government are just not working, especially in blue states and blue cities. As Klein wrote in the New York Times days after the 2024 election:

I’m worried about our institutions. I’m angry at our institutions. I don’t want to defend them. I want them to work.

In this house, on this podcast, we believe government should deliver fast, affordably, reliably. We believe institutions should work. They should build trust rather than spending it.

From housing to energy to medical advancements to infrastructure, progress is being held back by overloaded bureaucracy. While Trump claims to be cutting inefficiency, he’s really just cutting down everything. His worldview is zero-sum, operating from a place of scarcity.

Klein and Thompson want to operate from a place of abundance. They aren’t arguing for deregulation. They’re arguing for smarter regulation. They’re arguing for a way to get America back to building the housing, infrastructure and technology needed to meet the demands of the 21st Century.

This book lands at a time when there is widespread discontent with blue-area governance:

In the 2024 election, Donald Trump won by shifting almost every part of America to the right. But the signal Democrats should fear most is that the shift was largest in blue states and blue cities—the places where voters are most exposed to the day-to-day realities of liberal governance…

Voting is a cheap way to express anger. Moving is expensive. But residents of blue states and cities are doing that, too. In 2023, California lost 342,000 more residents than it gained; in Illinois, the net loss was 115,000; In New York, 284,000.

How did we get here? And how do we move forward? “Abundance” provides some answers.

Ralph Nader’s biggest legacy: red tape

When Ralph Nader was asked why he was qualified to be president when he ran in 2000, he responded: “I don’t know anybody who has sued more [agencies and departments].” Nader had built a career out of suing the government and calling for reforms—plenty of times, much-needed reforms—in order to protect the environment and the public.

The environmentalist movement had achieved tremendous success in the 70s and the following decades in improving people’s lives by reducing pollutants, emissions, and toxic materials like lead. But embedded in the string of new regulations and laws was the ability for anyone to bring new building projects, developments and programs to a screeching halt by challenging them in court.

If we’re going to point the finger at Ralph Nader, we also have to land some blame on Richard Nixon. Nixon was an environmentalist (this wasn’t the partisan issue it is today) and signed into law the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA).¹

While well-meaning, NEPA became a tool for activists and citizens to halt developments they didn’t like—and not just for environmental reasons. As Jeff Mauerer, who before writing for “Last Week Tonight” was a speechwriter at the Environmental Protection Agency, memorably put it:

NEPA has basically become the aliens in A Quiet Place, stalking the landscape searching for a development project to disembowel. And developers live in fear of drawing NEPA’s attention and having their project torn limb-from-limb.

Who will listen to the voices of the marginalized (the wealthy, well educated and well connected)?

One of my least favorite activities while working at City Hall was attending neighborhood meetings with aggrieved citizens. The public has every right to have access to their elected officials and have their concerns heard. (Expecting the elected official who represents about 100,000 people or their representative to come to your living room might be asking a bit much, however.)

The district the council member represented was—by far—the wealthiest and most well-educated district in the city. They were also the most…engaged, shall we say.²

If I had to summarize the majority of concerns from these highly affluent individuals, it would be: I have been or will be inconvenienced. I once spoke on the phone with a man who was apoplectic the garbage truck had picked up his trash an hour late a second day in a row. He wanted someone punished. Would he be receiving an apology from the head of the waste management department?

During one neighborhood meeting, the group leader asked whether we would drain the massive lake so they could clean their docks. Some of these neighborhoods bordered Lady Bird Lake and house prices were in the millions.

“We’re being nickel and dimed to death,” one member lamented as she sipped her chardonnay and nibbled on a catered spread of appetizers. Her friend, who had earlier been discussing her afternoon at the tennis court, nodded in solemn agreement.

^^If Lucille Bluth lived in Austin, she would most certainly live in this district.

While this behavior was irritating, nothing compared to the groups that fought tooth and nail against any and all development. It was clear there was no compromising with many of these individuals.

To get a sense of what kind of concessions developers would make to the community, here is an excerpt from the district newsletter (which I labored over and was the bane of my existence) from August 5, 2016:

A vacant property known as the "Champions" Tract, which is 45.35 acres, is located at the southeast corner of City Park Road and 2222. The lot could be developed as office and clinic space under the current zoning.

The applicant originally submitted a plan to construct 325 apartments, 50,000 square feet of office space and 42,000 square feet of clinic space.

After surrounding neighbors expressed concerns, the applicant is now offering to eliminate the office and clinic space and only build the 325 apartment units at the northwest corner of the tract, where 2222 intersects with City Park Road…

Council Member [NAME] and Senior Policy Advisor [NAME] have hosted numerous meetings with neighbors and neighborhood representatives from Glenlake Neighborhood Association, Long Canyon Phase II & III Neighborhood Association, Shepherd Mountain Neighborhood Association, Westminster Glen HOA, Two Coves Neighborhood, Courtyard HOA and Oak Shores Neighborhood. The District office also hosted a meeting on June 2 between neighbors and City Staff to further discuss the zoning case and to understand the neighborhoods' positions on the Zoning and Platting Commission's recommendation to Council. [emphasis in original]

Oh, you want to develop your own private property that you’ve paid millions of dollars for? You need to get buy-in from nine different neighborhood groups all with their own concerns/demands.³ Before the final approval vote, the council member had met with the following groups the following number of times:

• Glenlake - 7 meetings

• Westminster Glen - 2 meetings

• Sheppard Mountain - 4 meetings

• Long Canyon - 9 meetings

• Courtyard - 6 meetings

• Two Coves Neighborhood - 4 meetings

• Greenshores - 2 meetings

• Ski Shores - 1 meeting

• Austin City Park Neighborhood Assoc - 1 meeting

That’s 36 total meetings to express concerns. All for an apartment building with 325 units.

Did you catch the part where the developer was offering to eliminate the office and clinic space? Clinic space, as in medical clinics. Eliminated. 50,000 square feet of office space. Eliminated. But the demands did not end.

After the final vote, which approved the development by a vote of 7-4, the council member voted against and included this statement in the November 18, 2016 newsletter:

Prior to the November 10 Council meeting, Council Member [NAME] sent a clear signal to her colleagues by making a public statement from the dais that, unless the applicant and the surrounding neighbors could come to an agreement prior to the third reading that she would vote to support the neighbors in this zoning case and would vote against the rezoning. The Council Member stated clearly, publicly, and well in advance of the final vote by Council that she did NOT support the zoning application.

Despite voting against the development, the council member was still voted out of office weeks later. Many were angry she was not able to stop the development from moving forward. So they replaced her with an anti-development member, Alison Alter, who would later win a second term.

A colleague once told me that one of these groups fighting a big development had also been up in arms over earlier plans for the property: a senior living community. Of course, the residents of those communities are not known for being rowdy. Since they don’t typically have day jobs, traffic is very light. If something is going to be built, it’s almost the perfect scenario. It was clear that any kind of development would be opposed, even those with minimal noise, traffic and safety impacts.

This was just one of many such developments in the district. All received fierce opposition from multiple neighborhood groups—even developments that included affordable housing and numerous community benefits.

One of the frequent agitators in these debates once lamented to a community newspaper that they felt like they didn’t have a voice at City Hall. My first thought was, you had a private meeting with the council member last week—one of several over the past few months. You’ve even had meetings with the developers.

It wasn’t that they didn’t have a voice. It was that they didn’t have a veto.⁴

In this house we oppose more housing

Klein and Thompson take straight aim at what they call “lawn-sign liberalism,” referring to the “In this House We Virtue Signal” signs that are more common in Austin than dogs in bars and restaurants.⁵ These signs are also a staple in liberal enclaves like San Francisco:

In much of San Francisco, you can’t walk twenty feet without seeing multi-colored Black Lives Matter, Kindness is Everything, and No Human Being Is Illegal. Those signs sit in yards zoned for single families, in communities that organize against efforts to add the new homes that would bring those values closer to reality. San Francisco’s Black population has fallen in every Census count since 1970. Poorer families—disproportionately nonwhite and immigrant—are pushed into long commutes, overcrowded housing and street homelessness.

Spotted in the wild

One of the most damaging effects of opposition to more housing is a rise in homelessness. In Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern’s book, “Homelessness Is a Housing Problem,” cited in “Abundance,” the authors looked at common reasons given to explain homelessness and found the main culprit was the availability and cost of housing.

Multiple other researchers have found similar results. As researchers for the Pew Charitable Trusts summarized it:

Much of the research looks at the variation in homelessness among geographies and finds that housing costs explain far more of the difference in rates of homelessness than variables such as substance use disorder, mental health, weather, the strength of the social safety net, poverty, or economic conditions.

This insight leads Klein and Thompson to an uncomfortable conclusion:

If homelessness is a housing problem, it is also a policy choice—or, more accurately, the result of many, many, many small policy choices.

These policy choices lead to the kind of housing scarcity that pushes out many of the very groups progressives say they are trying to protect. As Noah Smith notes:

In fact, blue states’ failure to allow development is a pervasive feature of their political cultures. Housing scarcity doesn’t just cause population loss — it’s also the primary cause of the wave of homelessness that has swamped California and New York. Progressives’ professed concern for the unhoused is entirely undone by their refusal to allow the creation of new homes near where they live.

Is the tide turning?

There is reason for hope, however. Perhaps tired of the relentless anti-development attitudes at City Hall, Austin voters elected several pro-housing voices to the city council in 2022. If you live in Austin, you’ve likely noticed two things: 1) even more residential buildings going up in the area and 2) housing prices dropping.⁶

The new push for more housing got an even bigger win last year when the council voted for a host of reforms, including reducing lot size requirements, allowing greater housing density in certain areas and loosening height restrictions. This had been tried before and failed many times over the years.

Among the two “no” votes—Alison Alter, the anti-development candidate who beat the council member I worked for in 2016.⁷ As she told the Texas Tribune:

A group of people will be winners and get ahead and a group of people will be left behind,” Alter said. “I think we only need to look back at history to know that the deck remains stacked against the everyday person.

The “everyday person” in her district, of course, is the wealthy, highly educated, well-connected owners of multi-million dollar homes who got used to holding developments hostage until their demands were met. Yes, let’s look back at history and avoid the same mistakes.

What about DOGE?

I’m loath to discuss Elon Musk or the Department of Government Efficiency because I’m reading headlines about it every day (and they are not good headlines). I know people personally, negatively affected by the cuts. But it’s natural to ask if the goals of the “Abundance” crew and DOGE are aligned. It’s a topic that Klein decided to address head-on in a recent episode of Thompson’s podcast, “Plain English”:

Musk is going in, and DOGE is going in, and instead of reimagining what government can do or expanding government capabilities, making government work, he’s just destroying the thing. Now his defenders will tell you, oh, this is what he does. He turns things on and then turns them back off to see what breaks.

But this is not like running Twitter. When you fire a bunch of really talented people, which they are doing, you can’t just turn that back on…. They are not trying to make government work better. They are trying to break government so it is a thing that they can control. But because they are attacking government inefficiency, at least in a rhetorical way, it intersects with us…

But there is a need for the thing DOGE pretended to be, right? We actually do need efficient government. I think I say in the excerpt [for the New York Times], I published something like, “We’re caught between a party that doesn’t make government work and a party that wants government to fail.”

Final thoughts

The morning after we lost the runoff, multiple people emailed the district email address to gloat. They had sent an email just to rub it in.⁸ Sidenote: when you contact an elected official’s office, remember that you’re likely going to be talking to some underpaid, overworked staffer who is just trying to do their job. The person you’re mad at is likely going to get some watered-down version of what you said, if it reaches them at all. Don’t be a jerk.

While I felt the loss wasn’t the best for the district or for Austin, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief. Dealing with the public is not for everyone. No more neighborhood association meetings or long hours working on the newsletter.

But mostly, I was ready to work somewhere that had functioning locks on the restroom doors.

Further reading/listening:

• California Governor Gavin Newsom talked with Ezra Klein about “Abundance” and why his state of California has comes up so short in so many areas.

• Nate Silver considers the electoral impact of anti-abundance attitudes and thinks Klein and Thompson are too nice to the liberal establishment.

• Sarah Isgur, Jonah Goldberg, Megan McArdle and Steve Hayes react to the abundance agenda from the right.

• Zaid Jilani notes there may be limits to an “abundance” agenda given it has little to offer the heartland outside of major cities.

• Jeff Maurer interviews Marc Dunkelman about his book, “Why Nothing Works,” that many consider a companion to “Abundance.”

1. Ronald Reagan also deserves some blame as the governor of California when many of the environmental laws that now plague California were signed into law.

2. Demanding and entitled is another way to say it.

3. You think working class communities have nine different active neighborhood groups ready to advocate and agitate the moment a change to their area is proposed?

4. You know who doesn’t have time to attend multiple meetings at City Hall during the workday? You know who doesn’t have time to attend city council meetings that last all day and into the evening? Working class people. The actual people who often don’t have a voice at City Hall. The ones being pushed out of large, liberal cities. The ones leaving the Democratic party in droves.

5. Dogs are very common in Austin bars and restaurants. Too common, in my opinion.

6. Supply and demand, who knew?

7. The other “no” vote was Mackenzie Kelly, a staunch conservative opposed to affordable housing. To be fair, conservatives can be NIMBY as well. But as many of the quotes in this article demonstrate, it’s notable how many liberals were willing to vote for a Republican opposed to many of the things they claim to hold dear: she regularly voted against affordable housing, pro-choice policies, policies relating to transgender minors and climate change efforts. But she’s opposed to loosening housing restrictions so everything else can take a back seat. We vote our liberal values…until our material self interest is impacted.

And you better believe some of those folks have “In this house we believe” signs on their front lawns.

8. There is a nonzero chance if I ran into one of these people today they would be wearing a “Be Kind” t-shirt.