Profiling the Abundance Housing Bottleneck with Real Data
Profiling the "Abundance" housing bottleneck with real data
I tested Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's 'chosen scarcity' theory against real data from Austin, San Francisco, Vienna, and London. While Austin proves that clearing regulatory valves boosts housing throughput, Vienna shows that building a parallel public system works even better. My analysis reveals that clearing the pipe isn't the only solution, and we must profile messy problems before assuming a single fix exists.
Profile before you optimize. Don't assume you already know which function is slow, check.
- tptacek
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 the market (which produced virtually all the homes we live in) to function as well.
- roenxi
People can write what they like on their blog, but this article seems to be missing key details - we don't find out what the model is or the coefficients he's using and the model apparently immediately produces unrealistic results. Hopefully it is made clear in the book, but unless someone has read Abundance it is hard to follow.
If the model is just a rough rule of thumb then spot checking 4 cities in completely different legal frameworks, cultures and economic situations doesn't give us a lot of data. Economies are very complicated and any effect can be overruled by something unrelated but more impactful happening.
- hingler36
This is interesting analysis, but I don't think it necessarily counteracts what the book is saying. To build state-affiliated housing also involved "clearing the pipes" as the article put it.
Additionally, the Vienna housing that this article touched on is a way deeper rabbit hole that is absolutely worth looking into. They have a completely different housing paradigm than pretty much anywhere else in the world.
- joenot443
I get the impression the author may not have made it to the end of the book where a lot of these positions are better addressed.
I can take out my copy and explain better later today, if it’s interesting.
- cyberax
Hint: if you see "Austin" bandied around as a good example, then you know shit about housing.
Austin rent decreases happened because of its stagnant population, not because of new construction. It's barely growing _at_ _best_, and I predict that it's actually _shrinking_.
You can play around with the ACS dataset yourself: https://data.census.gov/table/ACSDP1Y2024.DP05
The 1-year estimate for 2024 is 993771, barely up from 979263 for 2019 (there is no 1-year estimate for 2020).