As someone whose heart will always be in Oakland, where I grew up, I read this piece with great interest. I think Klein identifies key problems, but misses a few relevant questions. https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/1359909368699838464

I'd start by asking why the relationship between cultural change and policy change has broken down in the Golden State.

California generally and the Bay specifically are at the cultural vanguard, especially on issues of inequality and injustice.

Just a year ago I wrote about the remarkable organizing of the Moms 4 Housing movement in Oakland, for example. https://story.californiasunday.com/moms-4-housing-oakland

But these movements and the broadly shared issues they draw attention to are often stymied. People organize, attract attention but then the changes don't happen or underwhelm. Why?

I'd look in two directions: An increasingly barren local media market where you either become a national story or you're basically not a story, and a set of governing institutions that are either unwilling or unable to translate grassroots demands into policy changes.

I don't think we can do much about unwillingness except to elect better leaders. What concerns me more is inability, which I think Klein probes pretty well here.

One point I would add to his piece though, is that I think our clunky federal system should bear more of the blame.

One observation I had as a baby wonk working on housing policy in New York City (obviously a significantly different context) was that decisions made at the federal level—sometimes many years ago—limited the tools available to state and local policymakers.

Decades of divestment from social housing would be the primary one I would identify (though I obviously have a pretty lefty bias.) Others would include corporate tax cuts decreasing demand for LIHTC and decades of federal inaction to implement the Fair Housing Act.

(The general devolution of zoning to local policymakers—also not looking so hot right now.)

What ends up happening at the local level, in my view, is that tenant and housing justice groups tend to oppose affordable housing and rezoning policies that are, truthfully, kind of pro-developer.

But in doing so, they sometimes unintentionally align themselves with NIMBY interests and, perhaps most concerning, could be reinforcing residential segregation.

Some might argue that this is in fact a choice made by activists, but I'm not so sure that's a fair critique. I think it's reasonable to ask who affordable units are affordable to, whether policies benefit existing residents, how developers profit, etc.

But overall, my general hypothesis would be that revitalized local media and federal policy changes could fix some of this dysfunction.

(Also: wow, this was a really unnecessarily long thread.)