Abundance, the new journalistic book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, gives voice to thoughts that many have been thinking independently.
In summary, the authors’ compelling argument is this: In government today, we are almost always trying to achieve too much at once. The result is that we do not make as much progress as we would like on core priorities.
The authors prioritize abundance of housing, green energy, mobility, and innovation. Most share these broad priorities. Most would also agree that we are not making the progress we would like towards them. With case examples, the authors point to a thicket of laws — rules, requirements, participatory processes, and mandated reporting — that stymie forward progress.
Over the past decades, federal, state, and local legislators have built that thicket of laws in seeking to accomplish goals from which we are loathe to retreat: Clean air, clean water, minimal traffic congestion, quiet and leafy neighborhoods, fair compensation to labor, inclusion of diverse groups, support for small business, regional equity, environmental justice, minimization of risk, waste, and corruption.
In our last national election, a candidate won who explicitly disowned many of those goals — even the minimization of corruption. Most of us are not ready to retreat. Klein and Thompson do not per se advocate doing so. But they frame questions for political leaders: Do those goals (and/or the process-oriented mechanisms that we have created to accomplish them) conflict with broad abundance priorities? Are there some trade-offs we need to consider? They coin the epithet “Everything-Bagel Liberalism” for progressive leadership that does not admit that progressive priorities could, to some extent, be in conflict — that there may be choices we have to make.
I do not consider myself wise about national politics and I do not have opinions as to the poetic language that Democrats should be using as they seek to regain national political leadership. My fear in posting about this subject is that most of the feedback I get will be about national politics.
I live in the prosaic weeds of state and local government and I try to keep my focus there. In the state-local context, it is crystal clear that we face difficult choices among competing priorities. There are direct choices where conflicting goals emerge, for one prominent example, between zoning to build more housing and zoning to preserve quiet neighborhoods. And there are subtler indirect choices, for example, between funding housing production without strings attached and funding housing production with a long list of collateral conditions.
Klein and Thompson emphasize the issue of process — hearings, reports, lawsuits that chew up time and money — around projects small and large. Most of the laws that extend process were created to build trust in government. But if extended process leads to project failures, that undermines trust. In other words, perhaps we should be less process-oriented and more outcome-oriented.
We do not have to look far to see projects that have moved too slowly because of extended public process aimed at legitimate goals. The Allston-Brighton I-90 project is a case in point. Deval Patrick announced the project with great fanfare and now under a third governor we still have not finalized a design and we are facing federal funding risks.
Because Klein and Thompson do not actually define an agenda or a set of solutions, they are able to avoid making any hard choices. They are able to simply point to some big failures and offer a critique. As a legislator, I make choices that speak to abundance many times a year and, truth be told, I am guilty of some “everything bagel” votes. In the legislative context, one accumulates support for a package that might start off with a single goal by adding provisions that gesture toward additional goals. Most of what we do combines goals, perhaps in ways that make it hard to achieve our primary goals.
In this post, I’ll stop where Klein and Thompson do — acknowledging a problematic pattern. Those that read this site from time to time have heard me speaking to this pattern, especially in the housing context. I will continue to struggle to see more clearly the choices we face.
I am eager to hear reflections from others on how the “abundance” lens applies to state and local government policy choices.
I think this paragraph summarizes the book’s key arguments best:
“Klein and Thompson emphasize the issue of process — hearings, reports, lawsuits that chew up time and money — around projects small and large. Most of the laws that extend process were created to build trust in government. But if extended process leads to project failures, that undermines trust. In other words, perhaps we should be less process-oriented and more outcome-oriented.”
Only they would omit the “perhaps”.
I agree with their critique of proceduralism and it is very much a local government issue as well. When one looks at how long it takes to build a bike path through Belmont, one sees this proceduralism run amok and we all could cite dozens of similar instances.
Nor is this just a problem of government. I work at one of our universities and in my 25 years I have seen the same expansion of proceduralism make everything from hiring a new professor to simple things like filling out an expense reimbursement become more and more time-consuming with no evident profit.
This is not something that would have been evident to me ten or twenty years ago and I am glad that some bright young writers like Klein and Thompson (and Matt Yglesias) have brought it to our attention as a pressing issue.
I second this in spades.
A detailed NYTimes analysis a few years ago of the cost and time required for major infrastructure projects in Europe vs. USA, illustrated how well-intentioned (and numerous) US environmental laws are routinely hijacked by special interests with money, overlapping bureaucracies fail to coordinate with each other and politicians take advantage to score political points.
Democrats need to admit to over-regulation and take the lead in finding and removing some rather than complaining and resisting Republican efforts to remove them all.
Hi Will,
Thanks as always for your thoughtful insights and questions.
Your post & the authors you cite illuminate some of the potential challenges of ‘everything bagel’ to government, where sometimes the number of cooks in the kitchen make it hard to see the forest for the trees. (How’s that for mixing metaphors? 😉
With liberals and conservatives more estranged than they have been in a very long time, it’s no surprise that the echo chambers of both sides / silos leads to gridlock and people digging into their positions more, and listening to other points of view less.
I know I’m not alone in contemplating the cruel paradox of a how a nation with as much abundance as the US in so, so many areas manages to leave so many of its people out of that abundance – whether by design, shortsightedness, inexperience, or any combination of these or other factors.
Hoping still that people of good will can come together and listen to and learn from each other, to craft laws and policies that are efficient, compassionate, and realizable.
Hi Will. I’ve read the book- even bought it because I didn’t want to wait for it through the library. I think they make some very important points. For Belmont, it makes me think about the Silver Maple Forest conflict with the housing development. I don’t know if a different compromise was possible for that situation, but over time, as much as I care deeply about preserving natural spaces, I am super concerned about housing. The housing shortage is causing such skyrocketing costs, that people freak out about the price of eggs because they’re barely meeting their rent or mortgage, and there’s literally no wiggle room. Our young people, and our city employees, and others, are in more and more difficult positions- moving further and further away from their families and jobs. Yes, I’d like things to be more outcome oriented, but I don’t know how to balance that with the need for people to have a voice, but maybe not always veto power…
Thank you for this article and defining the dilemmas that you have well illustrated.
No easy answers but you have to keep trying to find the door that is slightly ajar
with the best possibilities and then go for it.
I haven’t read the book yet but have listened to a number of podcasts with the authors. And I work in a charter school so am a state government employee. One of the biggest challenges of my job is dealing with the endless amount of compliance that we are required to do. Well-meaning legislators – and this is mostly I think coming from the state legislature – tack on to bills a requirement for schools to collect XYZ data or file XYZ report and do not consider the amount of staff time and attention that is now paid on those compliance tasks to the detriment of student learning. If we were more outcomes focused – what results are schools getting on the MCAS, disaggregated by sub-group – and less process focused – how about we ask a school to submit a lengthy report about their activities – we might be able to make faster progress. But instead we are bogged down by paperwork required by legislators who probably have never worked in a school. Sorry if this sounds like a rant but it is such an inefficient use of resources and it is driven by state – not federal – legislators. We have created layers and layers of bureaucracy and reporting and processes and real meaningful progress suffers. The Belmont Community Path is another good example. Why would it take 25+ years to build a community path? We need to go back to common sense about some of these things and shift the balance back towards achieving progress and worry less about the process if we are going to get anywhere as a community.
Glad to hear your thoughts on Abundance, a great topic for those of us interested in helping young families to build lives and afford to stay in Massachusetts rather than getting priced out!
Connecticut just stopped mandating parking minimums statewide—that would be a great policy for Massachusetts. Many buildings here—-apartments, shops, restaurants—could not be rebuilt if something happened to them because they could not comply with current parking minimums. It’s impossible to rejuvenate town centers because of parking mandates. It doesn’t mean no buildings will have parking, it just means some may decide to have less. Those renting or operating the store or restaurant know best what they need. Let’s let them make those decisions and not make them for them—counterproductively driving up costs and inducing traffic. https://www.mapc.org/news/phase-4-perfect-fit-parking-research/
Another huge step would be for the state to require towns to fund inclusionary zoning policies via tax abatements. In some places, these policies are misused to block housing. Requiring funding ends the potential misuse of a policy with salutary goals and requires facing the very real tradeoffs at the outset.
I’m concerned and befuddled by this position. If you build housing or retail uses that obviously need parking without parking (and many developers will jump on that), it does not mean that people associated with that use/development will not drive or need parking. It only means that there will be huge pressure on converting nearby green spaces (public or private) for badly needed parking. Also, there will be a lot of lawlessness when it comes to parking on nearby streets. In Boston, I have seen a lot of green spaces and beautiful trees on private properties (including front yards) decimated for parking when a density increase was allowed to happen without creating needed parking. Why would anyone want that in their community is beyond me.
Hi Eva, I’d suggest checking out “Paved Paradise” by Henry Grabar for a primer on why parking is almost certainly the disease, not the cure.
I wish you made an effort to counter my arguments instead of telling me about a book I have not time to read.
Creating developments and neighborhoods without sufficient parking makes those places transient, because as time goes by, many people depart for places where they can have parking. I’ve seen it happen in my own neighborhood. I would not live where I do if I didn’t have parking.
Thumbs up.
I agree! Mandatory parking minimums drive up the cost of development and block essential housing. I linked an article below about a housing development meant for families transitioning out of homelessness that was blocked over concerns for parking.
https://www.universalhub.com/2021/apartment-building-aimed-homeless-families
If there isn’t appetite for a complete parking mandate ban, we could follow NH’s lead and cap required parking at 1 spot per unit. They’ve made some great strides recently in some state-wide zoning reform.
https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2025/05/01/house-passes-bill-reducing-parking-requirements-for-housing-developments/
I moved to Boston in 1957. It was noisy, dirty, treeless, and deeply Catholic. But it was cheap, and looking back at that world now I find I miss the low real estate costs the most. It was not just the freedom that low costs gave around family and neighborhood organization; low real estate costs allowed all kinds of businesses — like second-hand book stores — that could never live here today to put down roots. Today every address seems to be a bank branch.
I have become a real radical on this issue. I want to see more housing built and I do not care what compromises I have to swallow to see it.
Why would there be low real estate costs when the Commonwealth is paying landlords to house illegal aliens, now that the “Healey Hotels” are closed? That is driving up demand which is driving up the prices.
We will never solve the housing problem until we first solve the immigration problem. But sadly our politicians have proven time and time again that they would rather cater to illegal immigrants than to their US citizen constituents.
There are no programs for housing illegal aliens.
Would a return to “noisy, dirty, and treeless” be an acceptable compromise? Not to most people in Boston or elsewhere.
Embracing mindless at-any-cost densification does not mean there would be an abundance of low-cost real estate. On the contrary – in urban areas, the greater the density, the more expensive the area becomes. I visited New York City and two large European capital cities last year – I didn’t see a single second-hand bookstore and not many small businesses at all (other than eateries), but I have seen them in small towns.
High density is the very reason why families and small businesses find it hard to survive in dense cities, and why most city dwellers live in shoe-box size apartments. Those issues do not get remedied by building even more density at the expense of green space and the quality of life.
Affordability is a complex problem that is a function of the high cost of land (particularly in urban areas), materials (high demand across the globe and depletion of resources), energy, and high-skill labor. Other factors are over-taxation, excessive bureaucracy, and too much demand due to world-wide overpopulation and resulting migrations from poorer to richer countries that it creates.
I’m a professor of economics at Berklee College of Music, and my book group is just over halfway through Abundance. Overall I think the book makes a strong argument, and I appreciate your thoughs here.
As to “everything bagels”, we should think hard about whether loading requirements onto a project is the right medium to accomplish a given goal. As opposed to collect some taxes and do it directly.
The book talked about California’s high speed rail. I think about the Green Line Extension, which yes got built, but WOW did that take a long time!!! And I recall that during the contruction process the MBTA was unwilling to run shuttle buses on the commuter rail tracks so workers spent 75% of the time setting stuff up and taking it back down, stretching out to 6 months a project that could have taken one.
Another example: I personally live just off Commonwealth Ave in Brighton and bike to work. While I was thrilled with the Commonwealth Ave. redesign and separated bike path, I was not thrilled that it took three years to build, and during those three years riding to work was more hazardous than it had even been! Once during year #3, as the lanes were squeezed to accommodate yet more construction, a car hit my rearview mirror, coming within 2 inches of wiping me out.
So yes, speed and deciveness is important. A large theme of the book is that we need to allow those in charge to make decisions and accept that the occassional mistake may happen. A good lesson.
In any case, I’m heartened to know my state senator read it!
Mr. Brownsberger: That is the way it is and you can make the process slower but not any faster. I can detect your frustrations as a legislator, but we move into totalitarianism if you try to measure the outcome of a project at the cost of the process. You mention the slowness of the Allston-Brighton I-90 project as an example. Let me give you a better example. A hard connection between Sicily and Calabria has been talked about since ancient times. In the 1990’s it became a serious necessity, and finally, this year, a bridge will be connecting Sicily to the mainland, to be completed in 2032. Over the centuries, and in recent decades, that I remember myself, there have been all sorts of issues, technical, political, financial, and even social… there are always people that do not like to change anything and want to leave things the way they have always been. That is the way it is.
Will, thanks for this.
Regulations are prescriptive, so they attempt to set boundaries. Abundance is a subjective perception, a state of mind.
People can experience abundance with far less material wealth than what we have; and materially wealthy people often experience mental poverty. So, one would ask “is the government in the business of projecting generosity?” Because in the subjective view personal generosity creates the experience of abundance. (Subject to obvious limits of extreme poverty, illness, etc.) What I would see as enabling generosity, and enabling abundance, would be a shift towards encouraging behavior rather than proscribing regulation. (Of course some regulation is always necessary.) This may sound like a different universe than we live in, I admit. But I suggest that inspiring leadership can bring the people along, at least part of the way.
So, is this a fairytale? Well, not exactly. As an IT director, I’ve had to educate and encourage staff who do not report to me to follow best practices while using business equipment. Sometimes office staff are very resistant to doing things in a safe way. In my work, I have found that a carrot works much better than a stick. Rules are needed, but it’s important to explain why and how they apply. Encouragement, education and outreach play a big part in success.
Some of the reasons for all the red tape surrounding new construction include safety and quality of materials. I’m sure there are optimizations to be made, but I’m concerned by the de facto assumption that rules, regulations and waiting periods are always generally bad. Is this the attitude that will prevail in Boston–build fast at any cost? Is new housing worth preventable fires and CO poisonings? What about the frequent maintenance that will be required on the cheap, cardboard houses being thrown together under relaxed building codes?
Hi Will,
Thank you for the summary, I will have to get more info on the book. I believe that too much abundance creates complexity. Think about a bill with all these little extras added. This makes the bill harder to read and more complex for our legislators to find balance. As opposed to crafting a bill with X, plus Y, Z…, why not pass a bill for X and let it stand on its own merit. It is easier to understand and judge by itself versus balancing typically unrelated items that just confuse the issue. Then our legislators can move on to crafting a bill for Y on its own. In our world of too much thrown at us from news to social media (= abundance of information), wouldn’t it be easier to slow down and focus on one thing at a time? Simplicity.
100% agree with Rui Coelho. Legislators should be prohibited from proposing (or voting on) any bill that mixes apples with oranges. Deals and favors can be arranged in other ways. I don’t want to hear anyone’s elected representatives whine : “Aw, loosen up! If we hadn’t included that clause about requiring truckers to bleed off their brake lines more often, we wouldn’t have gotten the necessary votes to make the convenience stores keep their ice cream section unlocked.” One thing at a time, and don’t give politicians too much wiggle-room when the voters need to know exactly where they stand on issues. A certain amount of cross-party/intra-party mutual backscratching is understandable and probably unavoidable. But please let’s keep apples and oranges separate on the lawbooks.
Worth reading on this subject:
Anti-Abundance Types Are Wrong About Housing Market Concentration
https://tinyurl.com/4t4vrvn9
Hi, Fred, thank you for sharing.
My feedback, for what it’s worth would be, OK, so monopolistic concern is not an issue?
You completely ignored the zoning restriction issue — which if an issue would favor larger construction firms with the resources to support legal staffs/counsel to get into the wedge of zoning and other building restrictions/requirements.
OK, so monopoly is not an issue. What about the zoning and other “requirements” issues being the impediments to ability and speed of construction?
To Senator, the zoning (restrictions favoring NIMBYism) and requirements (to have %s of “residence type” in multi-unit buildings) are the issues.
We need to recognize that if we want to let a metropolis concentrate, then we MUST allow/provide/enable appropriate housing concentration as well. It is a choice, difficult or not, but the choices must be aligned.
And, I still believe that allowing investment-purposed purchase of residential real estate, en masse, inflates the cost of residential real estate and teases turnaround in unrealistic directions. Again, housing is almost the perfect market, and supply v. demand can rule, but investment-purposed residential real estate purchases (firms, not individuals) artificially inflates demand. Again what is the purpose: turnover of homes, or wider residential ownership?
The point to me is purpose: this is the outcomes side. What are we trying to achieve, and let us put in place proposals and plans to achieve. E.g., LEGISLATORS, if we want certain volume(s) of affordable multi-unit buildings within certain proximity of areas, then investigate and draft.
Or, are we the individuals supposed to do the investigation, research and proposal development? In that situation, to me, need new legislators. Legislating, if a career, needs deliverables of substance.
I agree that combinational bills do 2 things: get more inclusion and water down the result. SO, perhaps, specific bills for specific objectives/problems.
Sorry, Fred — the “you” in paragraph 2 was to the author, not you! oooops!! 🙁
It feels like more regional authority would help some of this, like county level (tho Middlesex is too big for a single county) — smaller than Metro-Boston, bigger than just groups of 2-5 towns. That entity could push through transportation projects, avoid some inter-town zoning fights, ensure burdens and benefits are more equitably shared. I grew up in central NJ, where we had elected county officials. The county covered parks, tax assessment, some licensing, many roads, etc. Yes, most of us would not be happy with every decision. Tough. If we keep heading in the right general direction overall, might be the better approach for our kids. Sorry, New Englanders, the Town Meeting system that Tocqueville wrote about has some big negatives.
Some will say there are too many regulations. There surely are. But having *different* regulations town-to-town also slow things down for people (developers, state officials) who want to think bigger picture and plan for longer term.
On fed funding: when will we learn we need to jump on projects when funding is available? Belmont screwed itself by not being ready for state library funding, which we forfeited. We might end up losing funds for Cape Cod bridges. And the Mass Pike project in Alston you refer to. Yes, we study things for far too long, Mass Pike is prime example.
Of course, we do not need a Robert Moses plowing through people’s lives heartlessly. There’s a balance there somewhere.
I wish the trade-offs could be discussed more openly. For example, the bidding process for new subway cars requested the trains be built in Massachusetts, without a clear discussion of the trade-offs (delay and higher cost associated with building a new factory and training a new workforce, and likely poor quality control on first batch of train cars). Maybe the benefits of increased economic development in MA outweighed those costs, but I don’t think the cost vs benefit trade-off was explicitly discussed to allow a rational discussion.
Bill –
Good point. There are always trade-offs and costs and so discussing them makes sense.
Thank you, Senator, for engaging seriously with Abundance and inviting public reflection. One part of your post stood out: the supposed trade-off between zoning for more housing and preserving “quiet neighborhoods.” In practice, that often means single-family zoning that blocks dense housing near jobs, transit, and high-opportunity areas.
These policies may feel environmentally virtuous—preserving trees, limiting traffic, protecting “neighborhood character”—but they frequently cause net environmental harm. By pushing new housing far from job centers and transit, they force people into long, car-dependent commutes that increase emissions and sprawl. The result: a policy that looks green locally, but harms the planet globally.
We need to call that out: pseudo-environmentalism that protects scenery over sustainability. True environmentalism means enabling more people to live in walkable, transit-connected communities—not pretending we’re saving the planet by keeping density out of our own backyards.
We should also question the logic of pouring more public funding into housing while maintaining zoning and permitting regimes that make it nearly impossible to build in places where people actually want to live. In many cases, the better path is less public funding and fewer restrictions—just legalize housing in the right places and let the private sector build. That’s not austerity; it’s aligning our tools with our values—climate, equity, and fiscal responsibility.
Thanks again for fostering this conversation. I hope it leads to bold reform, not just thoughtful diagnosis.
I support Ben’s note with this addendum: it is a choice to allow/enable a downtown to blossom into a city — and that choice should (MUST, to me) align housing accordingly. Thus, if there is a Boston, then where are the multitudes of multi-unit residential buildings to be located to adequately stock a residential housing situation? Once Boston is there, NIMBY for the suburbs must be disrupted — oversimplification, but let it pervade the discussion and see what happens…
I listened to a podcast about the book. It has an interesting thesis, though offers few real solutions. Given human nature and our production “efficiency,” fewer regulations will result in more stuff – whether it be dwelling units or roads or manufactured goods. We don’t need more stuff. We need to better distribute the stuff we have and the resources we share. This is a pipe dream. A friend recently sent me a link to http://www.biocubes.net, an inventory of natural resources versus human-created ones (techmass). I was sobered, though not surprised, to learn, for example, that there is now more concrete in the world than plant biomass. What was truly depressing is that fully 2/3 of techmass in the world has been created since 1990. A mere 35 years, during which we have talked about—yet done virtually nothing about—our footprint on this planet. The underlying message of Abundance is that we need to free things up to build more. That is not the answer. The answer is to share better.
Haven’t read the book but have listened to the authors discuss it also read some critiques. It’s a compelling argument. The evidence that we are strangling on red tape & process is overwhelming. Housing is case study #1. We need more housing everywhere for everyone. Who gains from the current status who? More importantly who suffers? It’s getting to the point where people don’t have to worry about putting food on the table because they won’t have a roof over their head.
I think that Klein and Thompson make some important points. We want to make it hard to pollute a river, but we don’t want to make it hard to build solar or high tension electrical lines. And our housing problem is NOT due to immigrants, who make our country more vibrant.
Here’s a link to a post by Matt Stoller (substack Big) about how in Dallas, TX housing became unaffordable not because of overregulation – but because of consolidation of bankers and builders and private equity firms that bought single family homes during the 2008-9 economic crisis – and all of them benefitted from underbuilding. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/messing-with-texas-how-big-homebuilders
I think the problems facing our country need multiple solutions – not just one. I’d say we need to tone down the zoning AND crank up the antitrust enforcement. And I’m sensitive that removing OR imposing regulations is painful for some parties. I salute Will for making the difficult choices, and for being years ahead of many of us in recognizing the importance of building housing
Hi Will,
I haven’t read the book yet but I heard about it from reading Tangle. My biggest take away in understanding, is that we need to find ways of attaching enforceable schedule deadlines to important projects, deadlines that can’t be overturned in the courts. Deadlines that limit the discussion time, and design time.
An example of doing it the right way was the pandemic payroll protection plan. Was there fraud? Yes. Was there favortism? Yes. But were a lot of ordinary citizens and small businesses helped? Yes. And that was the intent. The government worked.
An example of it done wrong is the Belmont bike path. How many years has it been? 10? 15? And if they really start building it next year, it will be almost exactly what the original proponents imagined. How many years of benefits did we forfeit? And much less would it have cost even 5 years ago?
If the government wants to do anything that will be good for the community, they have to figure out a way to actually get it done. Some people won’t like it, some people won’t think it went far enough, some people will suffer from it, some people will profit unfairly from it. If the community benefits substantially it will be worth it. That is, if it actually gets done.
The problem for my party (D) and why we’re not getting anything done is we’re clinging to pseudo-progressivism and dogmas. This is great for the politicians and capitalists whose fortunes are tied to progressivism and dogmas, but not great for the kitchen table.
Isn’t overabundance a bane? Vis the more housing-more population-more housing treadmill (mismanagement) The essential abundance and gift in New England is its breathing room.
On this we agree.
Recommend reading Why NothingWorks by Marc Dunkelman for a historical/philosophical context on these issues.
An analogy to the “more outcomes, less process” idea has been put to work in the archives profession; it’s called MPLP or “more product, less process”. Since many archival repositories around the world have enormous backlogs of unprocessed material, the MPLP approach is to acknowledge the material although its contents are unknown and at the very least list it as a resource so that archivists and researchers outside a particular archive can be made aware that it exists. Perhaps an inductive solution like this can be applied in the political arena to address problems like climate change and housing shortages, where the product is not verifiable historical or institutional records but a way to magnify and multiply non-partisan consensus on issues from different sources around the world.
Massachusetts faced the problem of reconciling voice with progress in developing the expedited permitting process for energy projects that was included in last year’s climate bill. I thought that we went about it in just the right way – by including everyone in proceedings before the governor’s commission and by devising a solution that allowed everyone to comment early on while setting a timeline that ensured a decision within a reasonable time. Building trust in a process like this is a delicate thing. I believe that Governor Healey hit for extra bases on this one.
Less successful, perhaps, are the time limits on 40B project affordable housing projects. Still, my experience on Arlington’s ZBA leads me to believe that these time limits make a big difference. Death by a thousand hearings is just not possible, and there comes a point where the board will just make a decision. It’s not so fast, maybe, but it has an ending.
Comments by stakeholders and the general public matter. They often raise issues that are really important and that decision makers should welcome and consider. No one wants to go back to Robert Moses. The trick is to design procedures that optimize input and decisiveness together. For that, you need broad buy-in on the procedure itself. I don’t know that we can do that as though all issues were the same. But if everyone works together on the design of the process, knowing that someone (like Gov. Healey) will make a decision and that eternal delay isn’t possible, we can do much better that we do today.
Broadly, we cannot hold public officials responsible if there is a 10-year lag between their decisions and seeing any results. Excessive delays undermine trust in government. It’s one thing when the public rejects the government because it is not doing its job. It’s another when the public rejects the government, even when it is doing its job, because it takes too long to see the results.
Thank you for opening up this interesting discussion. My take away from the podcasts/interviews I’ve heard about the book is that government at its best is connecting people efficiently with the resources they need. Being clear about and focused on priorities (perhaps hierarchies of need, both short and long term) can help government better balance the tensions that arise between competing needs and desires. But of course, we may as constituents have different priorities when the issues come into real focus.
I recently undertook intensive training in quality improvement science with the goal of using it jointly with a network of others to reform bipolar disorder care, from diagnosis, to treatment, to systems of care. In learning more about quality improvement methods and data analysis, I repeatedly thought that these approaches would be so helpful in politics and government. The idea is to build iteratively, using easily-collected data to inform new approaches in real time, quickly adapting, adopting, or abandoning changes based on selected outcomes. What if legislation was designed to empower/compel governments to act in this way, scaling good ideas as their outcomes are demonstrated and shifting approaches if impact fails to match intent? I think this could help repair trust in government, engage residents more effectively in setting and evaluating priorities, and help move us all collectively forward towards lives of abundance – where our basic needs are met easily and we can put our efforts into thriving.
Prioritizing multiple, huge social needs when the tide is going out and the wind is blowing in, that is the challenge you (via Ezra Klein) have called attention to, thanks for that post. Governing is not automatic. The social contract makes enormous demands on leaders like yourself. Thanks again for your commitment!
To add one more demand for your list, I missed any reference to PERSONAL and PUBLIC HEALTH, except indirectly via clean air, clean water, leafy neighborhoods. The U.S. just can’t find the guts to bend the insurance industry away from its problems to our problems.
I know you feared getting feedback mostly about national politics, but I have to cite an opinion piece which I think sums up the the fear of making “abundance the new face of the Democratic Party so deeply concerning.” Aaron Regunberg, Jun 01, 2025, Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/economic-populism-not-neoliberal-abundance-is-the-best-path-to-defeating-trumpism
Common Dreams and Jacobin are wrong:
1) the Vice President didn’t make a mistake, she was the mistake. Well, the mistake within The BidenScandal. Harris was (and is if you correct for her publicity tour as VP) less popular than a character like Marianne Williamson.
2) The argument is a distraction. Economic populism, or abundance? Whatever. It’s a distraction. The Party has an antisemitism problem and an anti-liberalism problem. They’re naturally intertwined. The so-called progressivism runs only one pixel deep and is not grounded in any form of liberalism. I’m not even talking about mildly right of center Ayn Rand stuff, the Party is still all in on each and every particular that brought us so low.
The “rise in Trumpism” is commensurate with and perhaps a natural correction for the failure, disintegration and disruption of the Democratic Party. Not to mention transgressions against the Constitution.
In spite of not being able to recognize my Party, and loathing the idea of rewarding and endorsing the path, I voted against Trump in November, but all things being equal in spite of the pain and harms real or imagined being done by the Administration I believe the Democratic Party is far more dangerous at this moment in time.
P.s., This is a great topic. An utterly essential topic for Democrats. And as always I applaud the Senator for fostering a democratic forum. But, I fear it is also a distraction and a holding action.
We’re not going to get much done locally by sitting in our echo chambers applauding ourselves and convincing ourselves we are 100% right about issues while in the real world we are divergent from the majority view.
It’s also not helpful that we’ve started calling conservatives NAZIs.
Grandstanders like Newsom, Waters and Bass could have been a force for calm during a difficult law enforcement action. They could have said they don’t need the help maintaining order (it appears they demonstrated they may have benefited from the backstop) but but instead they are the ones amplifying and advertising the issue and creating the situation that makes chaos profitable.
Thank you for sharing, this piece makes good points. “…in the midst of Trump’s ongoing authoritarian takeover of our country, winning elections is the number one existential goal we must achieve.” INDEED
Thanks Will — I think the commonwealth needs to pave the way for nuclear power. Nuclear power would prevent the need to retrofit all the high rise buildings heated and cooled using steam. Furthermore if Massachusetts want to particulate in AI we have no choice.
The recent blackouts in Spain and Portugal prove the case for the nerd for nuclear power.
Canada has stopped sending New England electricity generated through hydropower. While that may change, we have no control over the amount of rain Canada gets. Likewise we have no control over the wind and sun.
The sooner we gather started building small cookie nuclear power plants the better.
The abundance narrative seems to me a little like a clumsy attempt to appropriate the populist ‘waste, fraud and abuse’ conceit. The difference between the approaches is that conservatives lie more often about their intentions and their results. The focus on process over results is indeed frustratingly time-consuming and encourages NIMBY-ism. How many times have we here in Belmont spent scores if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on studies and plans that do not come to fruition? The delays and roadblocks (pun intended) in Belmont to adopting a Community Path that connects to others that have been developed in our vicinity is a black mark on our town.
Really appreciate everything you wrote. I’ll add that government IT projects also suffer from some of the same challenges that Abundance highlights. For instance, I wrote about the difficulty MA has faced building a common application for public benefits: https://cascadeanalytics.substack.com/p/friends-without-public-benefits
A bill was passed in 2022 to make a ‘common app’, and it was funded in 2023, but it’s been stuck at the procurement phase since then. I talk about some of the reasons why it’s stuck, but two worth highlighting:
1) Risk aversion: The solicitation calls for a great deal of focus on project management, tracking how time and money are spent, giving reports to different stakeholder groups, etc. This is all important, no one wants any money to be spent poorly, but the greater “risk” in my opinion is that we spend so much effort in management and documentation that nothing actually gets built!
2) In the section “Everything bagel-ism vs. everything bagels,” I discuss how 25% of the evaluation criteria is based on the bidder’s Supplier Diversity Plan, or SDP. The vendors and government employees reviewing bids all need to submit and review this plans, even though the vendors all had plans accepted last year (to be in a position to bid on this contract). Supporting small businesses is a good goal, obviously, but helping people get SNAP and put food on the table is more important.
Thank you, Will, for the opportunity to give my opinion. I have not read the book; and I don’t think I have much new to add to what has already been said. However, I believe that being more outcome oriented is the answer, because spending years planning and discussing projects does not benefit anyone, nor foster government trust.
Housing is a real issue, and there is no point in having a beautiful and quiet neighborhood without anyone living there to enjoy it. It is a fact that our young graduates are moving out of state because they cannot afford to live here. And indeed, Immigrants are not the problem!!!!
A detailed look at the history of DCPO might give you some useful insights into the subject, Will.
I think the mistake I see a lot of people with state power make is bargaining against their own position, and I think Klein’s arguments here are in line with that failure of many Liberal policymakers. I think this goes for state politics as much as national.
A lot of liberal powerholders are very invested in norms and in stakeholders. Conversely, when they _aren’t_ invested in maintaining norms, it seems like their strategy is to appease those who already hold power (businesses and more powerful non-profit institutions) by breaking them because they are more likely to receive backlash with obvious effects from large powerbrokers than rank-and-file constituents.
The irony is this means that Klein can be right and wrong at the same time. Politicians seem eager to move things forward when it means appeasing donors and interested in “procedure” when it means achieving change for ordinary constituents that might displease large institutions.
Rather than trying to play nice and work to please as many people as possible, state power holders need to take strong moral starting positions backed up by concrete policies. It doesn’t matter the _number_ of policies they do or don’t back, as most people with liberal policy agendas support a variety of policies, all at the same time. What matters is that they have moral clarity and strong positioning.
By taking an strong stance initially on a variety of issues on behalf of constituents, donors and instutitions bargain from a position of comparative weakness. If you start from a weak bargaining position that tries to appease these institutions, they know they can talk you down to making even smaller, less bold demands.
It’s only _after_ taking strong stances on many issues we need to begin to think about prioritzation and where we need to accept defeat. If we start from a position of compromise, we will only get even less done.
Just one, particular, relatively small, example of how less ill-advised rigid government requirements might perhaps help?
https://groups.io/g/ClimateMALeg/message/326
Will – thank you for generating such an interesting and important discussion. I recently organized a webinar last month with the leaders of “Reinventing Government” under Al Gore, Elaine Kamarck and David Osborne, and it was inspiring to hear the numerous ways they found back then to improve performance and efficiency in government. Perhaps the Commonwealth could kick off something similar. The last major reform effort I can think of in Mass was under Gov Patrick, who led on reforming our pension system, municipal health care rules, and police details. It generated significant savings, was not politically easy, and virtually no one remembers he did it. For anyone who would like to watch the webinar recording, the link is here:
https://youtu.be/p9bZ6UVE9vE?feature=shared
You might find this amusing…
image.png
When Metro selected a developer to turn the parking lot next to its Takoma station into housing, Wikipedia and Gmail didn’t exist, the 20-year U.S. war in Afghanistan hadn’t started, and Donald Trump hadn’t yet appeared on “The Apprentice.”
Twenty-five years later, no shovel has even pierced the ground of what is still a parking lot in a corner of Northwest Washington. But the project finally appears to be moving forward, with EYA, the Bethesda-based company that won the contract, hoping to start building next year.
The reasons for the quarter-century delay reveal a lot about why it’s so hard to build housing in D.C. and other parts of the country where residents worry about additional density, housing advocates say.
The Metro station sits in D.C.’s Takoma neighborhood, but it’s a stone’s throw from Takoma Park, Maryland, just across Eastern Avenue. Over the decades, a number of opponents from the two liberal communities of mostly single-family homes have managed to derail the project time and again, sometimes enlisting elected officials in a drawn-out battle that has allowed a sea of asphalt to remain in the heart of an increasingly urbanized, walkable area.
Housing advocates say the lack of progress at the site highlights how a small number of vocal neighbors can make even the seemingly lowest-hanging fruit of housing development such a challenge across the region and the country.
https://wapo.st/4mrTroi
I really appreciate the concept of emphasizing outcomes. The truth is that we all have differing opinions on what our neighborhoods should look like. We need to get those differences out on the table so we can talk about them. Especially since people with opposing ideas insist their way is the right way.
Personally, as a scooter rider, I’d like to see us pave our streets. Its not about patching individual potholes. Its that I dont like getting flung into the air because our streets resemble the surface of the moon. I personally think every single street that is getting a bike lane should be repaved before you install the bike lane.
Sandeep Vaheesan engages the Abundance arguments substantively in Boston Review:
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-real-path-to-abundance/
Thanks for the link, it looks like an interesting article
Two quotes from the article-
“ while China has been demonstrating just how much a nation can do when it is not so constrained.”
“ But “politics is not just about the problems we have,” as the authors rightly observe. “It’s about the problems we see.” Unfortunately, Abundance itself suffers from a severe case of myopia.”
China is an authoritarian capitalist economy with a parasitic Soviet m.o. grafted on the body politic. Apple, well, all we Apple customers and consumers in general have nearly single-handedly lifted China from rural idyll to coal powered industrializing wannabe hegemon.
All politics is local. The progress of a train wreck is still a train wreck. The biggest problem for Progressives is not “process” it’s democracy.
While I love the genius of poetry poetics will not will not help Democrats regain a foothold in national politics. We have an antisemitism problem locally and nationally. We and the British made errors inventing useful Arab countries and it’s manifesting problems as the Jews who wish to return to their ancient and everlasting homeland do so. There will be peace with the Arab majority neighborhoods, but the notion of “Palestine” from the Greeks and Romans to the reinvention at the Arab Revolt can ever only be a word, and idea of wiping Jews off the land.
One passing idea that I saw in my time reading about this issue, I wonder just how much the fact that we build upon old regulations and never review them to see if those regulations are still serving our needs. I saw a comment mentioning parking minimums. The law didn’t exist until there was a need for it, but looking at it now, do we really still need parking minimums if we have a robust transportation system and more intentional 15-min cities? It could be a real hazard in some instances, but maybe having all laws retire after a certain number of years so that we have to all actively reaffirm it’s usefulness?
Senator, appreciate you engaging with the book. The tradeoffs you mention are very real, though as a starting point, I do think “achieving the outcome we set out to achieve on time and on budget” needs to be a goal in and of itself. Right now, governments have lots of rules that make legislative/regulatory/implementation processes transparent and accountable, but no one is held accountable if projects are delayed and over budget.
The smallest recent example I can think of is the Watertown library trying to add a coffee shop inside. There was an RFR (i.e., process), and the business that won the bid is a local business that owns a coffee shop across the street. The permitting process has taken an unimaginably long time for a business who clearly knows how to operate a food-safe environment (the winning bid was announced in Sep 2024). It finally opened last week but was told to shut down again due to “one more permitting thing from the city”. It’s just the smallest example, but clearly everyone is focused on following protocol, without the explicit goal of “helping a local business open as soon as possible”.
Sorry hit post too soon; someone already recommended the book “Why Nothing works”. Another wonderful book on this topic is Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better. The latter does posit more solutions!
Senator,
While I don’t agree with all of the arguments made in “Abundance” (e.g. I think our environmental protection regulations are appropriately strict), I do agree with the general premise that well-intentioned regulations are stymying progress on important policy goals. I think the key to this argument, however, is that local governments and other public agencies are unintentionally throwing up barriers to growth and progress in their attempts to democratize decisions and promote public engagement. I am sure you have heard of NIMBYism, and I think it is relevant to this conversation. Many liberals in Massachusetts consider themselves progressive, but at the same time they are fighting progressive change in their own communities. They say they support new housing, but fearmonger about overwhelming traffic when it is proposed in their neighborhood. They say they want to protect the environment and promote sustainability, but they insist that all infrastructure be auto-centric. Their personal beliefs are a contradictory thicket of antichange action at home and progressive rhetoric demanding change elsewhere. The state and local governments, through the many layers of public approval and input they desperate to provide, have given these folks outsized influence in public policy, local project permitting, and other decisions that usually end up with one conclusion: nothing changes. This is the eternal and internal struggle that liberalism faces: they want big changes, but also want everyone to agree on those changes. Seeking both, they get neither. This is the battle that has been fought for many years now, and I don’t see it changing without local leaders who are willing to keep their eyes on the prize and not just on the process, as intimated by “Abundance.” I just wanted to make it clear that I think the book is mainly placing the blame at the foot of the larger liberal government institutions, when we should be more cognizant of how everyday people are being given the power to stonewall change at all levels of public life. After all, if we can’t accomplish these goals and make progress towards our ideals in blue Massachusetts, where can we?
Thank you.
Thanks for one of the most thoughtful and reflective comments I have read in this set of remarkably, encouragingly, thoughtful and reflective comments. Your highlighting of the need for “local leaders who are willing to keep their eyes on the prize and not just on the process” was particularly welcome. I would only add that we, as followers, need to support such leaders even when we disagree with some of the compromises they make in pursuit of the prize(s), and even when it turns out that some of their decisions end up leading to outcomes that they (we) didn’t want. We are very lucky to have Senator B. as a leader grappling so seriously with what it takes to achieve many of the most important prizes the Commonwealth needs to secure.
Thanks for the post, and the forum.
Yeah, trying to satisfy everyone is a recipe for a project that takes extraordinarily long and has an unfeasible cost.
As you say, pioritizing the constraints that are important is the hard part, and also seems to be an inherently political part. I wonder if there are ways to move this process to the beginning of the timeline, either with templates appropriate for various types of projects (I think something like this exists already in limited situations) or having a time limited process to charter each project with a specific set of constraints
Hi Will
This makes sense. I have long been frustrated by how long it takes to get anything done from apartments in Cushing square to the Belmont bike path – 30 years in the making for a mile of path
I have been disappointed when I go to recent rallies and hear the same long laundry list of causes. I agree with most of it but quickly stop listening
My late mother in law a democratic activist said – no more than three things She was a shrewd woman
Locally I have been concerned that projects do not start with a budget and then figure out how to spend the money- we allow every well meaning idea to be added on blowing the budget and alienating people who are allies but also are having trouble paying their bills
Democrats need to make government work – and then show voters.
Even though I am a near socialist
I have voted for Republican governors when I got the feeling that the Democrat was not a person interested in getting their hands dirty and making government work – in the way that Maura Healy seems to be doing I am not interested in supporting people who say a lot of nice things but who cannot effectively manage and govern
I am a family physician. For forty years I have worked in Everett – a gritty working class city. The needs of the people cannot all be met. I have had to deal with a myriad of well meaning directives and recommendations Each one alone is a good idea, but to do them all would take 26 hours per day. I had to set priorities I also had to manage a clinic and balance a budget – and if I did not set those priorities and focus on how to deliver services efficiently- no one would get anything One has to make hard choices if you want to help people and make a better world
If you have not watched already, please watch Borgen – the Danish political drama
If Hillary Clinton had just watched the first episode we would not be in this current mess
Keep up the good work
Barry
Abundance is:
The transfer of the state’s land to benefit developers and appease a loud crowd.
I like your well-rounded view of politics. At the point of making choices, you must make a choice. This is my first time reading your blog, and I feel grateful that we have people like you in our government.
Forward progress is in the eye of the beholder.
Should housing and social justice be coupled as an issue when developers and their politicians are building unaffordable stock the below market set asides are not necessarily being used by people who qualify for this welfare, but include those who don’t report their income?
“ I do not consider myself wise about national politics and I do not have opinions as to the poetic language that Democrats should be using as they seek to regain national political leadership. My fear in posting about this subject is that most of the feedback I get will be about national politics.”
1) Too modest,
2) Dems need reform to restore reason and the center not poetry,
3) Have no fear! Too much of MA politics and out of state contributions is in service to the National Party agenda. And, all politics is local anyhoo. The thoughts and attitudes about national politics help drive local agendas. Is it so bad if there is some diversity of thought even if it strays a bit?
Speaking of abundance. Give me an abundance of choice; Give me the ability to pay in office co-pays in cash.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/abundance-why-nothing-works-books-debate-liberals.html
Upcoming Public Event on Energy
? Energy Reality Check: A Town Hall with Robert Bryce
? Thursday, June 26, 2025
? 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
? Downtown Boston (Exact location provided upon RSVP)
? *No cost to attend – RSVP required
Senator:
I haven’t read the book but have seen several synopsis. If the message you take from the book is that there are too many and too detailed regulations and reporting requirements and that these should be reviewed and reduced I see the merit. If the message is that the public’s voice is too diverse and therefore we need to dictate outcomes via the governmental process then I am not thrilled. I think our number one issue today is the desire, from both mainstream parties, to dictate to all of us how we should live. I think government is overeaching into everything and we need to reduce the involvement of government in peoples lives. A phrase I remeber growing up that you hear anymore is “Live and Let Live” Government should only be involved in things that there is a 75 to 100% agreement in the population. Anything less means there isn’t a general consensus and we shouldn’t be using force to accomplish the goal.