The Case for Building More Housing

This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Question of the Week

For whom or what are you thankful this year? Or, recount the best conversation you’ve ever had or the most interesting perspective you’ve ever learned about at a holiday dinner.

Send your responses to [email protected] or simply reply to this email. I read them all!

Conversations of Note

Greetings, everyone––I’ve been focused this past week on a legal challenge to the so-called Stop Woke Act in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis is on what I regard as the wrong side of a free-speech fight. If that’s of interest, I hope you’ll give my article a read. As for the upcoming holiday, I’m thankful for a lot this year, but absent from my list is turkey. Perhaps it isn’t the tryptophan, but rather its boring flavor, that makes us fall asleep on the couch?

Build More Housing, America!

The Atlantic staff writer Annie Lowrey condemns the status quo in housing policy as a needlessly immiserating catastrophe:

High rents and sale prices in major cities are a policy choice, one that puts gates around many of our most wonderful places and taxes the folks lucky enough to live there. And it is unfair to all of us. A United States with more abundant housing in its big cities would have a more productive, vibrant, and dynamic economy too. The best evidence for how much housing we need; —about 11 million—spend more than half their income on shelter. Renters today spend about 10 more percentage points of their earnings more on housing than they .