Ezra Klein

And we focus a lot on that.

And I would say when I look around that there's been at least the intellectual victory where there is something getting closer to a broad consensus that you should be able to build.

Legally, that should be possible in places where we need housing.

But then there's the question of can you finance the build?

And then there's a question of how much does the build cost?

What is the cost of construction in terms of materials, in terms of labor, in terms of how much you're paying labor, in terms of what kind of thing you need to build?

And I think a good critique of the book that I've heard is one, we don't talk very much about financing.

And one thing that's been hard is that even as a lot of yes in my backyard bills are passing, as you sort of mentioned quickly, the financing environment has gotten much worse because interest rates went way up after the inflationary period.

And the second is that cost of construction in a place like California is a very fraught topic because nobody wants to see wages go down.

There's a big deportation agenda happening under Donald Trump, which, as you mentioned, is making labor more expensive.

But even as there's been a lot of victories on zoning and exempting things from environmental reviews, the financing side has gotten harder.

I've definitely talked to mayors and others who say, look, I've got all these projects I want to see go forward.

And we've made it possible for them to go forward.

But the financing, the projects are not penciling out and we don't have an answer to it.

Mark, there's also a question of power here that I know you've been very focused on.

So I'm going to keep California in the front of my mind here just because I know it very well.

But

Very recently, you've seen clashes between Governor Newsom and cities across California because all these big bills are passing at the state level.

And then the cities are using all kinds of often fairly innovative approaches to just making them not work, to dragging their feet, right?

This is a big conflict between Los Angeles and the state at the moment, but not only Los Angeles.