Spencer Case

[Seán Keyes @Keyes]

Neat visualisation on rent control from John Burn Murdoch

[Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky @CD5LosAngeles]

We are living in an economy where people who already own assets keep building wealth while working and middle-class families fall further behind.

In Los Angeles, one reason is simple: we have made the first rung of homeownership (condos/townhomes) incredibly hard to build.

[Spencer Case @spencercase]

@HeyBuckHey @Simone_Biles @IndianaFever Omg blessed

[Joe Cohen @CohenSite]

The LA Country Club, which is over 300 acres and considered the most valuable privately-owned piece of land in the United States, pays less in property taxes than it charges a single member in initiation fees.

I'm disappointed that Mahan doesn't support reform

[Saad Asad @realsaadasad]

LA faces nearly the same political constraints as San Diego (high interest rates, tariffs, California law).

Yet San Diego has managed to increase housing construction by 10% over the past three years, while LA's housing construction has dropped by 33%.

LA's leaders are failing its residents.

[wiIIow the wise @sapphicjopper]

I've been a Stranger Things fan since season one and, in my opinion, this show grew too big for what it was intended to be—a small town indie sci-fi show about a struggling family and a bunch of outcasts. It never needed a 20 person ensemble cast and a 40 million Marvel budget.

[Governor Gavin Newsom @CAgovernor]

I just approved major pieces of legislation to keep building more affordable housing.

Whether it's turning empty office buildings into residential spaces or building more homes near public transportation, we're doing all we can to lower the price to realize the California Dream.

[Governor Gavin Newsom @CAgovernor]

All Californians deserve an affordable place to live. That's not just a policy statement — it’s about stability, dignity, and opportunity.

🔗 We're accelerating permitting, streamlining production, and strengthening enforcement of affordable housing law: https://t.co/Q5cTrGcCSG

[Becky Hartung @beckyhartung]

If @CAgovernor doesn't sign SB79 he is literally handing Republicans federal elections for the next decade.

[Jon Lovett @jonlovett]

SB79 is currently on @GavinNewsom's desk.

It’s a law that would speed up housing construction near transit and begin to address the massive housing crisis in our state. Passing it through the legislature was a huge victory for housing advocates and everyone who wants California to be affordable, who wants people to build lives and families and businesses here, and who wants to prove that Democrats can make hard calls and fucking govern.

The Mayor of Los Angeles, @KarenBassLA, caving to political pressure from NIMBYs, is asking the governor to veto it. It’s infuriating, honestly. She claims in her letter to the governor she’s all for more housing near transit and streamlining construction, a big wind up to all the classic “buts” about historic neighborhoods and community input and local zoning.

Those objections - endlessly litigated and addressed during the debate over the bill - are EXACTLY why California is in this mess and why it is so important that the governor sign this bill.

Right now, Los Angeles is on track to build less than a third of the housing we’ve promised to build, and yet the mayor says the state should just trust LA, even though it has completely blown it already. It's bullshit.

Meanwhile, families are priced out of California, and people are fleeing to red states, as Republicans say we can’t be trusted to govern the country, because we can’t even govern ourselves.

So I hope @GavinNewsom makes a big show of signing this bill, proudly, and stands up to the pressure, and makes it clear that he's behind this law 100 percent.

Yes it’s about housing - and that's really important - but it’s also about proving something bigger about Democratic leadership in California and beyond. COME ON, GAVIN, LET'S FUCKING GO.

[Abundant Housing LA @AbundantHousing]

Fact checking Traci Park's false claims on SB79:

[Katie Porter @katieporterca]

Great news! SB 79 — which would speed up housing construction in transit corridors — just passed both houses of the CA legislature.

We need more housing in CA — for workers, for seniors, for students, for families. Let's build it!

[Bobby Fijan @bobbyfijan]

I thought it was an even better clip for how people are successful on the ground on actual projects

Weiner stays calm, respectful and on point. Never contradicts, joins where he can … except on the most critical points where he points out the differences

If he hadn’t been there, the conversation would have been bad.

The face gestures, exasperation theatrics feels good. And plays ways among your own group on Twitter. but gets your project rejected and is not successful in local politics

[Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler]

It's 2018. LA's City Council is opposing SB827 over gentrification concerns. Rent is $1,663.

It's 2019. LA's City Council is opposing SB50 over gentrification concerns. Rent is $1,791.

It's 2025. LA's City Council is opposing SB79 over gentrification concerns. Rent is $2,625.

[Councilmember Nithya Raman @cd4losangeles]

I voted no against a resolution to unilaterally oppose SB79 today, not because I am in total agreement with the design of SB79, but because our housing crisis is too dire for us not to engage constructively with this bill and its goals: to build more housing near transit in LA.

[Councilmember Nithya Raman @cd4losangeles]

One of the reasons Sacramento has taken on more land use decisions that have historically been the purview of local jurisdictions is because LA and other major cities have not been building housing at the rate we need to be.

[Jeff Nippard @JeffNippard]

I’m eating lab grown meat the second it’s mass market ready. It’s biologically identical to animal meat and will reduce suffering more than any technology in the history of our planet as long as enough people switch over from factory farmed meats.

[Jesse Peltan @JessePeltan]

probably nothing…

[Jeremiah Johnson 🌐 @JeremiahDJohns]

Some people I talk to think Zohran is sincere in his recent YIMBY turn. Some are more skeptical.

Either way it's significant that nearly every candidate is competing to be seen as YIMBY. Optics have a funny way of becoming reality.

I hope NYC can finally build some housing.

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

Three points here.

First, I have nothing to do with the Abundance Institute, and they have nothing to do with me. I'm as responsible for their AI policy as they are responsible for my attitudes toward parking requirements and NIH funding—which is to say, 0% responsible.

Second, this guilt-by-association style of politics might be emotionally satisfying, but does it really make any sense?

From my POV, the Trump White House seems very likely to embrace a corrupt version of antitrust policy, in which threats against big companies will be used as a cudgel to force the private sector to bend to Trump's will. But I don't think that makes consumer protection and broader neo-Brandeisianism bad ideas! I think they're often good ideas, which have some really important applications, even if they don't come close to solving every problem.

I would ask folks like Zephyr to extend the same good faith toward my work with Ezra. Rather than blame us for every disagreeable idea from every organization that uses the word Abundance in their name or marketing materials, engage with the book's ideas on their merits.

- If housing scarcity is all about greed, why is it so much more expensive to build homes in CA than, say, FL or SC—are Florida developers really half as greedy as Californians?
- If energy policy is mostly downstream of big oil lobbying, why has Texas added the most solar and wind power? Don't they have a lot of big oil?
- If, as Sam Seder claimed, NYC can't build houses in part bc the state has failed to take on developers by taxing vacancy rates down to record lows, how do you explain the fact that NYC in the last few years ... already has decade-low vacancy rates?

Third, some constructive criticism: I think there is a tendency on the antitrust left to see everything as part of the same thing. Every problem is a problem of corporate greed and market concentration. Everybody who uses the word abundance is planning in secret together. This is just not the way I see the world, at all. What I see, instead, is that there are a lot of problems, with diverse causes, diverse solutions. We have to be curious enough to understand them.