A few months back, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson released a book in which they described the Abundance Agenda, which Klein summarizes as:

Abundance is the argument that a lot of what is wrong in our society is that we have manufactured scarcities. We have made it too hard to build and create the things people need more of. The places where we focus in the book are housing, clean energy, and state capacity…

But the solutions of one era become the problems of the next. Those procedures became overgrown. So now you have insane outcomes, like laws that are designed to make sure we have a cleaner environment being deployed against the development of solar panels and transmission lines and congestion pricing. Or the fact that in places like California and Washington, DC, it costs a lot more to build affordable housing than to build market-rate housing.

The housing crisis in California is essentially the textbook example of regulations being used to stymie housing (though many other places do it very well too). Which makes this NY Times story about “the buider’s remedy” very interesting (boldface mine):

The law is called the “builder’s remedy,” and it was designed to break the political logjams that have made California one of the most difficult places in the country to build. The law works by nullifying local zoning rules when cities fail to plan for enough housing as required by the state.

While the builder’s remedy has been on the books since 1990, it was effectively dormant until 2022. Since then, however, developers across the state have filed dozens of plans to build 10- and 20-story buildings in neighborhoods where they had never been allowed. Mr. Pustilnikov, who helped pioneer the tactic, has proposed 10 such projects across Los Angeles County….

The irony is that the builder’s remedy was rediscovered almost by accident. Even Ms. Wicks, one of California’s most staunchly pro-housing lawmakers, said the Legislature would never be able to pass the law now because of opposition from local governments. Thus, one of California’s most effective laws for building housing was not a product of its housing emergency or political will, but a legislative relic…

Over more than a dozen tweets, Mr. Elmendorf argued that since 1990, California had had a loophole that allowed developers to bypass the local zoning codes in cities whose housing element was deemed noncompliant by the state. In a follow-up paper, he called it the “builder’s remedy,” a nod to a similar mechanism that arose from New Jersey court rulings that have shaped housing policy in that state.

The clause had rarely been used. But, as it happened, the conditions for exploiting it were historically perfect. Cities across the state were about to be hit with increases in housing target numbers so steep that regulators were all but guaranteed to deem their plans noncompliant.

It’s probably not correct to argue that the builder’s remedy could have been used since 1990, as municipalities’ housing elements might have been deemed compliant back then, but it does seem correct to say that it could have been used since the last plan (roughly ten years, if I understand the timing correctly). What I’m really interested in is what this means for the entire abundance debate.

The example everyone uses for the abundance agenda is the California housing crisis, but the answer, the builder’s remedy, was sitting right there. For years. It suggests that maybe there’s more going on than just too much regulation.

In fact, it seems California is reacting to the builder’s remedy:

Last year, the Legislature passed a bill, introduced by Ms. Wicks, that explicitly codified the builder’s remedy in a modified form: Developers could more easily avail themselves of the tactic in exchange for set limits on density. They cannot build anything they want, but the allowable densities are still several times as large as what local zoning rules allow.

The ultimate impact of the builder’s remedy is likely to be measured not just in units that are built by using it, but in the ones built in fear of it. A few years ago, when Santa Monica was working on its housing element, Jesse Zwick, who was running to be a member of the City Council, sat in frustration while his future colleagues voted for a plan that the state ultimately rejected for failing to provide enough units, he said.

Then developers, including Mr. Pustilnikov, came along, and the wealthy beachfront city was blanketed with housing proposals. The city ended up settling with builders, and the effect is likely to be felt long after.

“The fear of builder’s remedy brought along a lot of people whose inclination was to fight everything,” Mr. Zwick said. “They realized it was in our interest to grow and at least be able to have a say in how we do that.”

Anyway, it’s kind of interesting that a stereotypical example of the problem abundance is supposed to address seems to have resolved itself.