A certain group of YIMBYs love to attack so-called “left NIMBYs.” But they’ve been silent when it comes to this prominent economist.
This week, Jason Furman appeared on the Ezra Klein Show for a discussion about the Biden economy, inflation, housing, and taxes. While they covered a variety of topics , there was one part of the conversation that stuck out most: Jason Furman does not buy the basic premise of YIMBY housing politics (i.e., that there’s a shortage of housing in the US). While we tend to disagree with Furman on this, what was particularly interesting to us was the subsequent lack of outrage from neoliberal-inclined YIMBYs.
Specifically, Furman says:
“I don’t love when people talk about housing shortages because I don’t know exactly what it means. There are more than enough structures for every American to live in. We have a homelessness issue but that isn’t that there isn’t enough houses in San Francisco, it’s a very different issue.” (this portion of the conversation begins at approximately 46:00)
Furman, a prominent pundit, Harvard economist, and former Obama White House official, went on one of the most prominent political podcasts in the country and said something not dissimilar from what I’ve seen lambasted by neoliberal YIMBYs dozens of times. That there is no shortage of housing because the US has more than enough housing units for every person. When a random 120 follower leftist Tweets something along these lines, neoliberal YIMBYS are all too eager to dunk on them and point out (correctly) that this is wrong, as many of these units have been abandoned or are in undesirable places to live with little economic opportunity. But I’ve seen very little of this same pushback in regards to Furman.
Perhaps this is because they simply missed the 90 minute-long interview, even as it was on a prominent YIMBY’s podcast. More plausible is that it’s because some neoliberal-aligned YIMBYs feel that they have too much in common with Furman (a fellow neoliberal) to make it attractive to fight with him without the frisson of negative polarization. Despite their typically individualist worldview, interesting to see that solidarity appears strong amongst neoliberals.