The Trouble with Abundance
Abundance is a powerful word. It evokes optimism, confidence, progress. It gives a sense that a better future is not only possible but within reach, if only we can clear away what holds us back. That’s the energy behind "Abundance," the new book by Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein. It’s a hopeful, energetic manifesto that diagnoses a key American failure: We’ve forgotten how to build.
On its face, the argument is hard to disagree with. Our cities are choked with red tape. Housing is scarce and expensive. Infrastructure takes decades and costs multiples of what it should. Clean energy is stalled. The economy feels sluggish, not because we lack ideas but because we’ve created systems that smother them. The authors offer a compelling case that America needs to remember how to say “yes” again, to homes, to projects, to change.
And yet, while I found much to admire in "Abundance," I also found myself uneasy. Not because I reject the goals, or the urgency, or the frustration with the status quo. But because I’ve seen this movie before.
A generation ago, Thomas Friedman gave us "The Lexus and the Olive Tree," a book that married globalization with a vision of enlightened, technocratic governance. Like "Abundance," it was smart, forward-looking, and eager to overcome small-minded politics in favor of big-picture progress.
It also carried a familiar tone: one of confidence in centralized solutions, managed from above by the right people with the right insights. It assumed that the core systems of governance and economics were fundamentally sound, they just needed to be updated, optimized, or liberated from parochial interference.
"Abundance" carries echoes of this same mindset. Despite its nods to local experimentation and bottom-up innovation, the strategy it lays out is mostly top-down: reform the administrative state, weaken local veto points, centralize housing rules at the state level, and allow investment capital and enlightened innovation to flow. It’s a strategy of clearing the pipes, an assumption that the right ideas already exist; the real problem is resistance to them.
There’s more than subtle hubris baked into that approach. Not personal arrogance, but structural confidence: the belief that if we could just remove the obstacles—political, regulatory, procedural—the right outcomes would naturally flow from existing systems.
But what if the machine isn’t just clogged? What if it’s miscalibrated? What if the friction we’re trying to eliminate is the noisy resistance pointing to the deeper harm we are doing to our cities, towns, and neighborhoods?
That’s where I find myself parting ways with "Abundance." Not in the diagnosis—we agree that the system is broken—but in the prescription. "Abundance" wants to make the top-down systems we've created work better. Strong Towns often finds that these systems are themselves the problem.
A number of people have suggested to me that "Abundance" and Strong Towns are actually on the same side: both trying to clear barriers so that good things — more homes, better infrastructure, cleaner energy — can happen. That’s a generous reading, and there’s some truth in it. But the methods matter. It’s one thing to empower and support neighborhoods to grow on their own terms. It’s another to restructure governance so that neighborhoods can be overruled from afar in the name of progress.
The Strong Towns approach starts from a different assumption: that real resilience comes from proximity, not just efficiency. It’s not about empowering elites to streamline growth. It’s about creating feedback loops where those most affected by decisions also bear the consequences and have the capacity to respond.
That doesn’t mean giving more power to the loudest person at the zoning meeting. Right now, most local governments are overbuilt for input and underbuilt for action. Everyone gets a turn at the mic, but nobody feels heard. Every project, regardless of size or impact, becomes a political battle. Every reform must pass through arbitrary layers of discretion. That’s not bottom-up governance; it’s a slow-motion veto of the future.
Recognize that this reality came about as a top-down response to the federal growth and development systems put in place after World War II. Federal housing, transportation, and infrastructure initiatives of the post-war era came from an "Abundance"-like belief that society's problems could be solved, once and for all, by designing perfect systems from above.
One of the clearest expressions of this mindset came from the visionary developer JC Nichols, founder of the Urban Land Institute. In the 1950s, he gave a speech titled "Planning for Permanence." In it, Nichols proposed a vision of city-building where the messy complexities of urban life could be anticipated, accounted for, and built out of existence. Where bold "men of vision" could design and build permanent prosperity using the tools of planning, zoning, and centralized capital.
That elite vision was seductive. It promised order, prosperity, and a rational end to the chaos of incremental change. It held out the hope that smart people, armed with the right tools and good intentions, could solve the many problems of urban life once and for all. But, as we have so thoroughly experienced, not only did this approach fail to deliver on immediate prosperity, it also laid the groundwork for deeper fragility.
What was built to last a century often began to fail in a generation. And when it did, the centralized systems behind it lacked the feedback loops or adaptability to repair what had gone wrong. The defensive, overly bureaucratic processes we have now didn’t emerge by accident; they are a direct response to that failure, an attempt to prevent future harm by freezing progress in place. And yet, in trying to prevent future mistakes, we’ve made it nearly impossible to respond to current needs.
The Strong Towns approach rejects the entire pursuit of permanence. It recognizes that healthy communities must be able to evolve. That means embracing uncertainty, responding to feedback, and designing systems that are flexible, not final. It means letting go of the dream that we can get it right once and for all and instead learning to work at getting it a little more right, day after day, one step at a time.
The real choice "Abundance" calls on us to make is between systems that evolve and systems that calcify. Systems that empower people to act locally versus systems that consolidate authority in the name of liberation. Systems that learn through iteration or systems that bet everything on big fixes from above.
Take something as simple — and as difficult — as a backyard cottage.
In many places, a homeowner who wants to build a backyard cottage will find themselves blocked by a tangle of outdated zoning codes, political resistance, and a permitting process designed for obstruction. "Abundance" is right to diagnose this as a failure and right to want to break the logjam.
But where "Abundance" encourages local advocates to give up their agency — to empower distant institutions in the hope that someone else will fix the problem — the Strong Towns approach begins with a different kind of invitation: You can fix it. In fact, you are the one who needs to fix it, right where you are, with the tools and relationships already in front of you.
Begin by shifting the narrative. Ask out loud why something as common-sense as a backyard cottage requires such extraordinary effort. Strong Towns exists to help with this. We create and share clear, accessible information that local advocates can use to communicate these ideas with their neighbors, councils, and city staff members.
Find an example where a backyard cottage is already in place and working, whether in your city or one like it. Make it relatable. Help your friends and neighbors see that this isn't radical or risky but normal, desirable, and achievable. Show them how it works, how your neighbors and community benefit, and why it matters. Then hold that up as proof: This is not only possible, it’s already happening.
Then help one new example succeed. Work within the rules you have, or find a compelling case to make an exception. Document what happens. Share the story. Build local support by showing what’s possible, making it all very normal, and asking why we don’t allow more of it.
Bottom-up reform doesn’t begin with sweeping change. It begins with one visible win. Iterate and expand from there. Build trust. Align policy with values. Make the next step easier than the last. Let the system evolve in the direction of its own success.
That’s how you start shifting the default. Not with a single breakthrough, but with narrative clarity, visible success, and repeated pressure. You change what’s politically possible by making the unfamiliar feel normal. You shift the culture — which is what ultimately needs to change — to make better decisions inevitable.
And let's be clear: I don’t mean inevitable like gravity. I mean inevitable like compound interest; a tiny, persistent, visible pressure applied in the same direction until the math changes and things accelerate. That’s the essence of bottom-up reform. At first, it’s slow, messy, and often invisible. But it accelerates change while building systems that last because they’re rooted in feedback, trust, and place.
If "Abundance" helps people see that something is broken, that’s a step forward. But the future doesn’t need more confidence in the machine. It doesn't need us to sit around and wait for others to fix the system, or for us to continue to cede power to those promising a quick fix.
A friend of mine summed up the underlying tone of "Abundance" this way: “Give us back all the power and control we had from 1945 to 1965.” That era gave us urban renewal, the interstate highway system, school consolidation, and more; grand programs launched with total confidence and almost no humility. The promise today is that we're smarter now, that we’ve learned, and that we won’t make those mistakes again.
But that kind of certainty is exactly what we need to be cautious about. History is full of top-down solutions that overlooked complexity and ended in harm. What we need today is not a new mandate from the center, but a renewed capacity to act locally, iteratively, and with care.
We don’t need permission to start building that future. And we shouldn’t wait for it.
Charles Marohn (known as “Chuck” to friends and colleagues) is the founder and president of Strong Towns and the bestselling author of “Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis.” With decades of experience as a land use planner and civil engineer, Marohn is on a mission to help cities and towns become stronger and more prosperous. He spreads the Strong Towns message through in-person presentations, the Strong Towns Podcast, and his books and articles. In recognition of his efforts and impact, Planetizen named him one of the 15 Most Influential Urbanists of all time in 2017 and 2023.